15 APRIL 1843, Page 2

Drbatis anb igirottebings in Varliamtnt.

REGISTRATION OP VOTERS.

The Registration of Voters Bill having been read a third time on Monday, Lord CHARLES FITZROY proposed a clause securing the fran- chise to every occupant rated to the poor-rate "on the gross estimated rental of 10/." ; and giving votes to joint occupants upon an estimated amount of rental which should allow a proportion equal to lOi, for each occupant. Sir JANES GRAHAM regarded the great diversity in the mode of rating throughout the country as an insuperable objection to the clause ; which was withdrawn.

Mr. CoLvne proposed a clause enacting, that in case the vote of a person should be received under protest, and another person should tender a vote for the same qualification, the second vote should be en- tered on the poll, but distinct from other votes, and not cast up by the returning-officer. The clause met with general concurrence, and was added to the bill.

Some slight amendments having been made, the question was put, that the bill do pass. On which Sir THOMAS WILDE rose, and in a speech of considerable length renewed his objections to the bill, on the score that it surrendered the jurisdiction of the House to the Judges ; appealing to historical reminiscences of the privileges claimed by the House ; and especially to the protest of Lord Coke and others, in 1604, against the issue of a writ by the Lord Chancellor ; which, though it was torn out of the journal of the House, by James the First, was still the recorded assertion of the House's privilege, not only to issue writs, but to exercise authority in all matters relating to the seats of its Mem- bers. The bill would make the Revising Barrister's decision on the register final ; subject only to appeal to the Common Pleas on points of law ; though Members would not submit to the decision of the young gentlemen appointed Revising Barristers property worth lot.! And the Barrister might even prevent appeal on the points of law ; for the bill authorized him to judge whether it would be "reasonable and proper that an appeal should be entertained." Why, even the best judges are hardly able to tell what is material to a case : once, when Sir Thomas Wilde attended Lord Chief Justice Tenterden for the pur- pose of settling a special case of much importance, he insisted on the insertion of some words which he thought necessary to a satisfactory settlement : Lord Tenterden, "with less than his usual blandness," ob- jected to the words, as unimportant ; but aftewards he decided in favour of Sir Thomas's clients on the very passage in question. Sir Thomas de- clared that the people would be more content with the existing system, than with the present vain attempt to find a tribunal free from uncer- tainty and political bias, to which juries and even judges are obnoxious. He concluded by moving the omission of the clause giving the right of appeal from the decision of the Revising Barrister to the Court of Common Pleas.

Sir JAMES GRAHAM argued that Sir Thomas Wilde's whole speech was based on a misconception of the nature and probable operation of the hilt; for by the 94th clause, the jurisdiction of the Election Committees was preserved intact according to the 60th clause of the Reform Bill itself. With respect to the Revising Barrister's power of refusing the right of appeal against his decision, except upon "reasonable and proper" grounds, if he did so the matter would remain just where it was ; for -the disputed point could be carried before the Election Committee. Sir James did not rest his defence of the provision impugned on the high character of the Judges but on the publicity which attends their pro- ceedings, and on :the check furnished by the bar ; and he repeated his conviction, that the decisions of the Law Courts are more depended upon by the people than the decisions of Committees of that House ; of whose weakness on points of law Sir Thomas Wilde had himself ex- pressed a consciousness.

Lord Jonti RUSSELL supported Sir Thomas Wilde's view ; quoting the saying of Mr. Fox, that the two great securities for the liberties of England were the trial by jury and representation in the House of Commons. The clause was supported by the SOLICITOR-GENERAL and Mr. Hrnsr.. On a division, it was affirmed by 102 to 26.

The bill then passed.

The bill was brought up in the House of Lords, and read a first time, on Tuesday ; when Lord Bitola:aux gave notice, that on the second reading of the bill, or on moving certain resolutions, he should call upon the House to consider,swhether, after ten years' trial of the Reform Bill, some change ought not to be made in the system which exposes the country to all the evils of annual Parliaments without one single atzisntage of annual Parliaments.

'ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS.

SkJAMES Gaastax haylog moved the second reading of the Eccle- - - siastical Courts Bill, on Monday, Sir ROBERT INGLIS opposed the motion ; pointing to the number of petitions against the measure— eighty-two presented that night, and as many, he believed, the night before. He condemned the destruction of 380 ancient courts, against which no valid complaint had been made: it was like the reckless spirit of savage life, which dettrayed the tree to get at the fruit. In a prac- tical point of view the change was for the worse : at present a will can be examined for is. ; under the new law the cost would be 11. 10s. : a will can now be produced at a trial in York for 14s. ; if brought from London the expense would be 20/. or 30/. To the poor it would be a denial of justice. For ten years the average yearly number of wills proved at Bodmin was 380; and in 245 of those cases the parties attended personally to prove the wills. The centralizing tendency of the bill was the very reverse of bringing justice home to every man's own door. It was said that the custody of the wills would be safer in London ; but was that proved r.

Had fraud never happened in London ? It had. A gentleman went abroad for six months, having left his will in the hands of his attorney. On his return he went to the Bank to receive the dividends which had accrued on his stock during his absence. " Sir," said the clerk, "I am very sorry to tell you that you are dead. (Laughter.) You have been dead some time. (Cheers and loud laughter.) There is no stock standing in your name, it has all been sold out ; for your will has been proved." (Great laughter.) Could that have happened in any country court in England ? He believed, that in that cue the Bank, rather than suffer any inquiry, replaced the stock and paid up the dividends. Then, again, London was, of all parts of the world, perhaps, the most in danger from fire. The Tti4ier was not safe, Westminster Abbey was not safe, the Royal Exchange had been consumed, and they were then sitting within walls which reminded him of a similar conflagration.

Sir Robert concluded by moving that the bill be read a second time that day six months.

Sir JAMES GRAHAM said, that Government had brought forward the measure with a full knowledge that it would meet the opposition with which Sir John Campbell threatened a similar measure when intro- duced in 1835 by Sir Frederick Pollock, then Attorney-General—an opposition from the country-solicitors, a very powerful body, who would send many petitions to the House, and influence many country gentle- men to vote against all such zeform. He appealed, however, to the high authorities by whom such a measure had been recommended,—the Commission, composed of the highest ecclesiastical and legal authori- ties; the Committee on the Admiralty Courts ; the opinions reported by that Committee, of the late Sir John Nicholl, Sir Herbert Jenner Fast, Dr. Lushington, and Chief Justice Tindal ; Lord Grey's, Lord Mel- bourne's, and the present Cabinet, with their Law-officers. Against Sir Robert Inglis's objection of centralization, he set the errors which had arisen from the dispersion of the jurisdiction through 380 courts ; and he cited several of the legal authorities already named, who were unanimously of opinion that the cost in London would not be greater than it would be in the country. With respect to the poorer class of legatees, it was expressly provided that testamentary documents relating to property under 300/. should be deposited in the diocese ; and docu- ments of a larger amount, while deposited in London would be regis- tered in the diocese. To all parties injure by the abolition of courts the bill secured compensation ; and the surpi,..s which would accrue on the falling-in of sinecures would be made available for any judicial pur- pose connected with that branch of the administration of the law. The danger was not greater in London than in York, where the Minster had twice been set on fire, or in LiverpooL If it should be the pleasure of the House to reject the measure, he should deplore it ; but he shoal4 believe, for reasons to which he had already alluded but which it would be indecorous in him to state, that private interests, he blushed to own, had very powerfully operated upon individual members of the House in opposing a measure which be conscientiously believed to be beneficial.

Mr. Jeavis objected to the measure, that it would give rise to abuses of .patronage, and would perpetuate precisely the worst abuses of the existing system— The great evil of the existing system was, that the Common Law Courts might express one opinion and the Ecclesiastical Courts another. To prove this he had only to refer to the case of Tatham against Wright, where it was decided that the testator was insane as regarded the testamentary disposal of real property, and sane as regarded the passing of personal property. In one case the Judges decided upon the oral examination of witnesses, in the other upon the written testimony of witnesses, of whose demeanour they had no op- portunity of forming an opinion ; and yet this was the system which was to be perpetuated by the bill.

It was no reform of Doctors' Commons; for it did not open the practice there; and as to the wills of smaller amount, they are no- toriously drawn in a less technical form, and are exactly the documents which require the greatest professsional skill in deciding what ought to pass at common law ; so that the bill established one law for the rich and another for the poor. He warned Members, that the registering of wills in London might be the commencement of a plan for the general registering of title-deeds as well

Colonel SIBTHORP having supported the amendment, Mr. BROTHER- TON moved the adjournment of the debate ; which was carried, by 136 to 51, about half an hour after_midnight.

On Tuesday, the debate was again postponed to the 28th instant.

VESTRY REWORK

Sir JOHN WALsn moved, on Tuesday, for leave to bring in a bill to repeal Hobhouse's Vestry Act (1 and 2 WilL IV.) The great defect of that measure was, that it took the votes of the population of parishes in masses, although in parishes as large as cities, having 100,000 or 150,000 inhabitants; and consequently population was represented to the exclusion of property, and that to such an extent that the wealthy districts were practically disfranchised. The measure destroyed the chance of having local knowledge in the Vestrymen ; and it even defeated itself; for by management the elections came to be controlled by the few, so as to beget the evils of the old self-electing system. He proposed, that the parishes should be divided into wards and districts for the purposes of election, and that the number of Vestrymen should be apportioned to each district in proportion to the total amount of pro- perty rated in each district. Each of those districts should separately elect its own members of the general Vestry. Some local acts give the Vestries power of making police and other rates, while general acts enable the Churchwardens and Overseers to do so, and make them re-

sponsible ; a responsibility which had seriously inconvenienced a noble Lord in the parish of 3Iarylebone : he proposed to compel the Vestries to make the necessary rates.

The motion met with general opposition. Mr. GAILY KNIGHT said, that none of the evils described by Sir John Walsh had been expe- rienced in the parish of which he had been a Vestryman for years. Sir

13Es/semis- Harz remarked, that the bill was introduced by a gentleman

who had not the slightest Parliamentary connexion with the Metropolitan parishes, and who had proved no single grievance under the existing system—no jobbing, no increase of rates, or of expenditure. On the contrary, since the adoption of the Hobhouse Act, the expenditure in Marylebone, taking the periods of seven years immediately before and after the passing of the act, had fallen from 1,015,842/., in seven years, to 847,000/. The bill was also opposed by Captain Rous, Mr. HAWES, Mr. Hume, Colonel Twaates WOOD; and Mr. MACKINNON thought that it went too far. Sir JAMES GRAHAM, seeing this unexpected op- position, advised that the bill should be withdrawn.

Sir JOHN WALSH did SO. EDUCATION.

Lord Josus RUSSELL laid the following resolutions on the table of the House of Commons, on Monday—

"1. That in any bill for the promotion of education in Great Britain, by which a board shall be authorized to levy, or cause to be levied, parochial rates, for the erection and maintenance of schools, provision ought to be made for an adequate representation of the rate-payers of the parish in such board. 2. That the chairman of such board ought to be elected by the board itself. "3. That the Holy Scriptures, in the authorized version, should be taught in all schools established by any such board. "4. That special provision should be made for cases in which Roman Ca- tholic parents may object to the instruction of their children in the Holy Scriptures in such schools. "5. That no other books of religious instruction should be used in such schools unless with the sanction of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, and the concurrence of the Committee of Privy Council for Education.

" 6. That, in order to prevent the disqualification of competent school- masters on religions grounds, the books of religious instruction, other than the Holy Bible, introduced into the schools, should be taught apart, by the clergy- man of the parish, or some person apykdrited by him, to the children of parents who belong to the Established Churchrser who may be desirous that their children should be so instructed.

" 7. That all children taught in such schools should have free liberty to resort to any Sunday-school, or any place of religious worship which their parents may approve. "8. That any school connected with the National School Society, or the British and Foreign School Society, or any Protestant Dissenters' school, or any Roman Catholic school, which shall be found upon inspection to be efficiently conducted, should be entitled, by licence from the Privy Council, to grant certificates of school attendance, for the purpose of employment in fac- tories of children and rung persons. " 9. That, in the opinion of this House, the Committee of Privy Council for Education ought to be furnished with means to enable them to establish and maintain a sufficient number of training and model-schools in Great Britain.

"10. That the said Committee ought likewise to be enabled to grant gra- tuities to deserving schoolmasters, and to afford such aid to schools established by voluntary contributions as may tend to the more complete instruction of the people in religious and secular knowledge, while at the same time the rights of conscience may be respected."

Sir JAMES GRAHAM promised to give the resolutions his best atten- tion. Since the second reading of the Factories Bill, he had received several deputations on the subject, and had heard many objections urged : to which he and his colleagues had given the most calm con- sideration; several points touched upon in Lord John Russell's resolu- tions had formed the subject of deliberation with the Government ; and he confidently hoped, that, consistently with the principles announced by him on the second reading, it would be in his power to propose several modifications upon those points.

Lord JOHN RUSSELL stated, on Tuesday, that he should move the resolutions on the 4th May.

THE ASHBURTON TREATY.

In the House of Peers, on Tuesday, Lord ASHBURTON, apparenty much affected, made his acknowledgments for the resolution which the House had passed on Friday. However gratifying to himself per- sonally, the resolution was more valuable for its expression of satisfac- tion at the restoration of a good understanding with the United States, which it is the duty and interest of both countries to maintain ; an expression which could not fail to have the greatest effect in pro- ducing the consummation desired. The overwhelming importance of settling the differences which had grown up between the two countries was his great inducement to undertake the task, probably without sufficiently estimating his own deficiencies for its execution ; but he had had the good fortune to perform the duty in a manner which had been approved of by his Sovereign and her Ministers, and now by the almost unprecedented honour of the approbation of the House. It was impossible to express how deeply sensible he was of that honour. As was natural in two free countries, the treaty had in both been dis- cussed with great freedom ; and he might confess that the minutes question of more or less of boundary, which had been the subject of so much discussion, had in his estimation weighed very little in compa- rison with the larger question of a settlement which should be satis- factory to men of honourable minds in both countries; for none other would be likely to have any permanency.

On the motion of the Duke of WELLINGTON, it was ordered that Lord Ashburton's address should be entered on the journals of the House.

In the House of Commons, on Monday, Lord PALMERSTON drew attention to the following passage in a letter from Lord Ashburton to Mr. Webster, on the subject of the Creole, dated the 7th August 1842— " In the mean time, I engage that instructions shall be sent to the Governors of her Majesty's colonies on the Southern borders of the United States, so to execute these laws as that there shall be no officious interference with American vessels arriving in their ports, or driven into them by stress of weather."

He wished to know whether any such instructions had been sent out ?

Lord STANLEY said, that they had not been thought necessary. The instructions sent out by the previous Government, to assist and liberate any person detained on board ship in any British port, had been repeated. Bat before Lord Ashburton's reply to a request from Mr. Webster, which Lord Palmerston had quoted, the Governor of the Bahamas had asked for instructions on certain hypothetical cases, which possibly might arise ; and it was considered that the reply to that application was such as substantially to comply with the request assented to by Lord Ashburton.

Mr. Humes on Monday, postponed his motion of thanks to Lord Ashburton, to the 2d May.

SLAVE-TRADE PREVENTION.

On Tuesday, Lord BROUGHAM laid on the table of the House of Lords a bill, of which he had given notice on the previous evening, for the more effectual suppression of slave-trading. In its preparation, he said, he had had the assistance of Dr. Lushington, Captain Denman, and Mr. Beldam, a barrister intimately connected with the subject. It had three main objects. The first was, to declare the law now in force, which prohibits British subjects residing abroad from buying and selling slaves. The next was, to prevent itish subjects from holding slave- plantations ; though persons succeeding to property of the kind, or otherwise involuntarily acquiring it, would expressly be protected from injury by the measure. The third object was, to prevent joint-stock companies in this country from buying and selling slaves ; which he should seek to effect, by calling on the proper officer of each of such companies to give security that it would not employ slave-labour, under such bonds and penalties as the Queen by an order in Council might direct. He should also endeavour to strike at the root of the evil, by facilitating the taking of evidence on the Western coast of Africa, to be used in the Courts here ; and, while every care would be taken to protect innocent traders from interference, persons would be prevented from dealing in those commodities which tended to keep up the slave- trade on the coast of Africa. Lord Brougham animadverted on the inconsistent conduct of the United States in the matter ; declaring him- self unable to comprehend how any jurist in that country, any states- man, or any common lawyer, could hold that any country which had declared a certain offence to be felony or piracy could complain, if its own subjects, who set its law at defiance, were stopped in their com- mission of the piratical offence by another country.

Lord CAMPBELL heartily concurred in the last remark ; and was per- suaded that the slave-trade never could be suppressed until that opi- nion prevailed.

Lord ASHBURTON was afraid that the law of the noble and learned Lords, though it might hold good at Westminster Hall, would not do so at Doctors Commons. He agreed that it was most desirable that such a law should be established by general consent ; but, as Mr. Canning had said to Mr. Rush, two countries cannot make laws of nations.

Lord BROUGHAM said that his opinion was merely speculative.

The Earl of ABERDEEN remarked, that all the civilized world had not yet called the slave-trade piracy ; for France had not yet done so. Alluding to his letter to the Admiralty, he took the opportunity of dis- claiming the intention of casting any imputation on Captain*Denman, to whose services he paid a high compliment.

Lord DENMAN, making a corresponding acknowledgment, expressed the opinion that there is a natural law of right and wrong which makes the pirate a public enemy, and the slave-dealer equally so. He could bear testimony to the fact that there was no trade carried on in slaves by America on the coast of Africa ; and there could be but one opinion as to the admirable manner in which the courts of law in America acted when any cases of this nature came before them : their decisions were indeed models of purity and correctness in the administration of justice. What appeared extraordinary was, that the Judicature and the Go- vernment should so widely differ in their proceedings on this important question. The traffic, however, could only be entirely suppressed by a general combination of all civilized nations; and he had no doubt that the discussions would greatly tend to that result.

The bill was read a first time.

SLAVERY IN THE EAST.

Mr. STUART WORTLEY drew attention, on Monday, to an official re- port by two officers of the United States Navy, alleging that the slave- trade is carried on by Portuguese, Arabs, and Negro tribes, in the Red Sea, Persian Gulf, Portuguese East Indian Colonies, Bombay, and per- haps other British possessions in the East Indies ; the latter trade being probably conducted in Arabian vessels.

Sir ROBERT PEEL explained, that such trade did take place in the territories of the Nizam and other Native states; and probably it thence found its way, across British territory, to Native states in the interior. But the law had been already exerted to prevent that abuse; as in 1841, when an agent of one of the Ameers of Scinde was condemned to five years' imprisonment for conveying four Arab girls from Bombay to Scinde. A similar sentence had, at the previous sessions, visited a similar offence. In some parts of British India there were Arab slave.; women who called themselves the wives of their owners ; and in these ways existed individual cases of slavery which it was difficult-to pre- vent. New measures, however, had been taken effectually to check the evil— By a recent regulation there bad been established, under certain provisions, Vice-Admiralty Courts on the coast of India ; and the Governors of all the British territories in India had been invested, by instructions sent out last summer, with the same powers as those possessed by the Governorefn. Thep eat Indies. And, by a curious coincidence, a measure was to come in force 10 India on that very day, (the 5th or 10th April,) to amend the law relative to the condition of slavery within the territories of the East India Company, founded on suggestions made by Lord Auckland. Sir Robert Peel read its provisions, which enacted, that no claim to the industry or services of a person, nor any right of property in him, on account of his alleged condition of slave, should be recognized; and that "any act which would be a penal offence if done to a free man, shall be equally an offence if done to any person on the pretext of his being in a condition of slavery."

THE BISHOP OP JERUSALEM.

Dr. BOWRING moved, on Tuesday, for copies of the correspondence of the British Government with the Porte on the subject of the Bishop of Jerusalem. Without any authority from the Porte, he said, to es- tablish a bishopric in Syria, large sums of money had been collected throughout this country for the purpose of carrying out a plan, which

was understood to have originated with the King of Prussia, for some sort of hermaphrodite union between the Lutheran and Anglican Churches in the Holy. Land ; and before even there was a congregation to receive him, the Bishop was shipped off at the public expense, with a wife and six children. The Bishop selected was entirely ignorant of Oriental languages, and, as Dr. Bowring believed, of general classical literature. In the part of the Levant to which he went, Jewish origin was an opprobrium ; and the people were scandalized at seeing the matron° accompanied by a " vescova " and," veseouine" ; for morality in the Christian character was associated in the minds of the Eastern people with celibacy. Of all forms of Christianity the Lutheran is there the most unpopular. This religious interference was not calculated to allay existing animosities. And what was the Bishop to do, when Jews flock from all quarters to die, as Jews, in the land of their fathers ; and instead of Massulmans ever being converted, the only show of conver- sion is, that many Christians profess the Mussulman faith ? Dr. Bowring abruptly brought his speech to a close, remarking that it was useless to to proceed, as there was evidently to be " a count." [Many Members leaving the House.]

Sir ROBERT Nous defended the appointment of Dr. Alexander and his attainments : his Jewish parentage particularly fitted him for his mission ; and Sir Robert scarcely dared trust himself to a consideration of the higher topics which the allusion suggested. The first founder of the Christian Church in Jerusalem was St. James, a Jew. He thought the Bishop's wife would have an opportunity of exhibiting those social virtues which could not but be productive of good to those by whom she was surrounded. The Porte had actually promised Dr. Alexander its protection ; and Sir Robert Inglis read extracts of a letter from the Bishop, totally denying stories which have reached this country, of violence done to him ; and among them one that a stone had been thrown at him. Moreover, the Bishop had already administered the com- munion to twenty-four communicants. Sir ROBERT PEEL opposed the motion, on the ground that the hostile levity of the mover made it impolitic to accede to it ; and the produc- tion of the correspondence would not remove those prejudices which inevitably attended the appointment of a Protestant Bishop at Jeru- salem: but be could confirm Sir Robert Inglis's statement, that no hostility had been manifested to the Bishop. The expense to the coun- try was limited to the Bishop's free passage out. Instead of agreeing to the motion, Sir Robert Peel wished it to be understood, that he de- sired to give the undertaking every aid which the Government could properly give.

Mr. HOME supported the motion. It was opposed by :Lord PAL- MERSTON ; whose Government had accepted the invitation of the King of Prussia, and had commenced the arrangements for establishing the bishopric. It was also opposed by Mr. SMYTHE ; who was stopped in his speech by sudden illness, which obliged him to sit down, amid the sympathetic heers of the House. Dr. BOWIUNG, remarking that he had been very much misunderstood, as his Imlay object was to prevent political contention in that quarter, withdrew his motion.

MiscEradarmotrs. SMALL ALLOTMENTS. Mr. COWPER moved, on Tuesday, for a Select Committee "to inquire into the propriety of setting apart a portion of all waste lands which shall be enclosed by act of Parliament, to be let out in small allotments to the labouring poor of the district, and also into the best mode of effecting the same." At the suggestion of Colonel Thomas WOOD, the motion was made to include past enclosure bills. Sir JAMES GaAstam would not oppose a motion merely for inquiry ; and it was agreed to.

CRIMINAL LAW. Mr. ROEBUCK asked, on Tuesday, whether Go- vernment intended to embody the recommendation of the Criminal Law Commissioners in a code of criminal law ? Sir JAMES GRAHAM replied thus— The House was aware that the resultof the protracted labours of the Com- mission referred to was seven reports : in the last of these reports the Com- missioners recommended some consolidation of the criminal law, appending specimens of the mode in which they would suggest this to be done in the laws as to treason and murder. He was persuaded, however, that such important changes in the criminal law could not be effected in this way. There would be necessary, not merely a compilation of the statutes, but also a thorough exa- mination of the decisions of the Judges and of the interpretations of the law of the Courts. To render such a compilation safe and eligible, would require the exercise of the utmost caution, the most matured experience, and the most ex- tensive knowledge. He did not think the Government, as a Government, should undertake this compilation. If done at all, it should be the work of a Commis- sion; and he was not prepared to say that for the purpose of attempting this great work he could advise her Majesty to issue such a commission. It would be one of the greatest changes ever attempted in the laws of this country, having a most important bearing upon the future administration of those laws. He could not conceive a step requiring more cautions deliberation on the part of Parliament than an attempt of this kind. He thought that a commission for the purpose should not issue on the authority of the Crown, but should be a Parliamentary commission, appointed by statute; and, as at present advised, he could not say that he was now prepared to recommend such a Parlia- mentary commission to the House., Several Norma) OF Mama, not mentioned above, were given on Monday and Tuesday— Sir ROBERT PEEL, on the 4th May, for leave to bring in a bill having for its object the endowment of additional ministers of the Church of England in certain populous districts. Mr. FITZROY KELLY, 011 the 27th April, for leave to bring in a bill to alter and amend the Act of the 5th and 6th Wm. IV., for the regulation of Muni- cipal Corporations in England and Wales. Mr. CHARLES VILLIERS, on the 4th May, to call the attention of the House to the subject of the Corn-laws, with a view to their total repeal. Mr. SCIIOLEFIELD, after Easter, a resolution to relieve the existing distress by a further tax on income arising from property, in lieu of the existing taxes on tea, malt, and sugar. Sir THOMAS WILDE, on the 25th instant, to call the attention of the House to a petition from Mr. Rowland Hill ; (presented on Monday, and setting forth the facts respecting the treatment which the Penny Post system has received from Government.) Mr. Thomas DONCOMBE, on the 27th April, a Select Committee to inquire into the Prison Discipline of the country. Mr. EWART, on the 9th May, for leave to bring in a bill to abolish trans- portation as a punishment. Mr. CHARLES &imam after Easter, a motion to amend the present law with respect to the disposal of Waste Lands in the Colonies, with a view to the extension of colonization.

Mr. COBDEN, after Easter, to call the attention of the House to the extent of our trade with our Colonies, and also to the cost of our Colonial establish- ments.

THE EASTER RECESS. Both Houses adjourned on Tuesday ; the Commons to Monday the 24th instant, the Lords to Tuesday the 25th.