think the noble Lord ought to press the measure then upon their Lordships, for although the House was well and respectably attended, it was not fully attended. The noble Lord, besides, had shown no solid ground of complaint against the present system. The object of his Bill was to make an alteration of six months in the payment of the rates; but he (the Duke of Wellington), for one, could not consent to it, and he really thought the noble Lord ought not to press his Motion. LORD CAMPBELL had listened. with the most profound respect to the noble Duke, but could not agree with him as to his objections to this Bill. He had ever conceived that this imperative rule for payment of rates, even where not called for, was a defect in the Reform Bill. He was strongly opposed to organic changes; but the present Bill only proposed to make a reasonable change. LORD REDESDALE had ever considered the regular payment of rates, as enacted by the Reform Bill, the test of a voter's respectability. His chief objection, however, was to proceed with such a measure at such a period of the Session, when it was clearly impossible that it could be duly considered. He therefore trusted the noble Lord would accede to the suggestion of the noble Duke. EARL GREY said, that if this was merely a matter of speculation, and not a grievance constantly and practically felt, he should agree with the noble Lord. It was notorious that in several parishes the collectors abstained from calling on the more respectable inhabitants until late in the season, as they knew that they could readily obtain the rates; and the result was that this class of persons were constantly disfranchised. This Bill more particularly affected the House of Commons, and as it had been sent up from that place, he thought that the House should adopt it. He denied the assertion that there was not a sufficient attendance of Peers to justify their passing such a Bill at that period of the Session. The EARL of ELLENBOROUGH denied that this Bill merely affected the House of Commons, for the state of the constituency was a most important constitutional question. The truth was, that the House of Commons was in the habit of sending up a number of Bills at the end of the Session, which had been introduced by private Members of Parliament, and not by the Government. It was, therefore, too much to call upon that House at once to sanction such measures, without affording time for considering what was best for the country. He objected to the Bill on the grounds urged by his noble Friend (the Duke of Wellington), that this Bill affected to afford relief where there was no real ground of complaint, and also as it had been brought forward at such a late period of the Session. LORD BEAUMONT regretted that he could not accede to the request of the noble Duke. Bill read 2a. House adjourned. HOUSE OF COMMONS, Monday, August 14, 1848. MINUTES.] PUBLIC BILLS.-1o Charity Trust Regulations; Commons Inclosure (No. 2); Transfer of Landed Property (Ireland). 2o Commons Inclosure Act Amendment; Ecclesiastical Patronage Suits Compromise (Ireland). Reported.-Steam Navigation; Spirits (Dealers in); British Spirits Warehousing; Petty Bag, &c., Offices (Court of Chancery). 3o and passed:-Turnpike Acts Continuance; Poor Law Union District Schools; Money Order Department (Post Office): Boroughs Incorporation. PETITIONS PRESENTED. By Lord G. Bentinck, from the Borough of Kinsale, for Instituting an Inquiry respecting the late Election for that Place. By Mr. Bouverie, from Launceston, for an Alteration of the Law respecting the Church of England Clergy. - By Mr. Wilson Patten, from Members of the Congregation of Primitive Methodists, of the Town of Burnley, Lancashire, for a Better Observance of the Lord's Day.-By Mr. Pattison, from Members of the General Body of Protestant Dissenting Ministers, resident in London, for Withdrawal of the Regium Donum Grant.-By Mr. Goulburn, from Inhabitants of the Parish of Hanover, in Jamaica, to take the State of the West India Colonies into Consideration.By Mr. Hume, from Householders of Edinburgh, for the Abolition of the Annuity Tax (Scotland).-By Lord G. Bentinck, from Engineers, Miners, and Others, of several Places in Cornwall, against the Copper and Lead Duties Bill.-By Mr. Cardwell, from Merchants, and Others, of Liverpool, for Retrenchment of the Naval and Military Expenditure.-By Mr. Osman Ricardo, from several Lodges of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, for an Extension of the Benefit Societies Act. -By Sir John Romilly, from the Town of Machynlleth, Montgomeryshire, in favour of the Charity Trust Regulations Bill-By Colonel Dunne, from the Grand Jury of the County of Galway, for Relief of the Distress (Ireland). -By Mr. Mackinnon, from James Logan, 2, Norfolk Street, Marylebone, in favour of Instructing Schoolmasters and Ministers in the Gaelic Language.-By Mr. Lushington, from Members of the Health of London Association, for Alteration of the Nuisances and Contagious Diseases Bill.-By Viscount Melgund, from the Presbytery of St. Andrew's, Fifeshire, for Improving the Parish Schools (Scotland).-By Colonel Dunne, from Members of the Grand Jury of Galway, for Inquiry respecting the Working of the Poor Law (Ireland).--By Mr. H. Berkeley, from Officers employed in the Westbury-upon-Severn Union, Gloucestershire, in favour of a Superannuation Fund for Poor Law Officers.-By Mr. Hume, from the Presbytery of Meigle, against the Registering Births, &c. (Scotland) Bill.-By Mr. Boyd, from the Town of Coleraine, in favour of the Renewable Leasehold Conversion Bill.-By Viscount Morpeth, from a Number of Persons, Frequenters of Hyde Park, and Others, respecting the State of the Serpentine River. PLUNDER OF THE ROYAL WOODS. VISCOUNT DUNCAN asked if the noble Lord at the head of the Woods and Forests had any statement to make with reference to the subject of a certain private communication which he (Lord Duncan) had, as Chairman of the Committee on the department, made to the noble Lord this Session; also whether the noble Lord had anything to state with respect to the depredations which it had been discovered had been, during some years, committed upon the wood in the New Forest? VISCOUNT MORPETH replied, that from the information which he had received he had reason to believe that a system of fraud and depredation had prevailed for a long time past with respect to the New Forest. As soon as the revelations in reference to them were brought under his attention by the praiseworthy investigation of his noble Friend, he engaged the services of two gentlemen who were specially recommended to him for the purpose, and he had every reason to believe that they would prosecute their inquiries with effect. Two persons had been already apprehended, and committed to take their trial in consequence of these depredations. THE COLONIES-OMITTED CORRE- On the question that the Speaker do leave the chair for the House to go into a Committee of Supply, LORD G. BENTINCK said: Sir, I should have hoped there would be no objection to grant the Motion of which I have given notice, which is that "An humble Address be presented to Her Majesty that She will be graciously pleased to direct the Earl of Elgin and Kincardine forthwith to transmit to Her Majesty's Secretary of State for the Colonies Copies of the omitted Correspondence between the Provincial Secretary of Canada and the Secretary to the Montreal Board of Trade, and will direct that the same be laid before this House." But the Government have expressed themselves dissatisfied with the terms of my Motion. I apprehend that Her Majesty's Ministers, and especially the Colonial Office, are somewhat sensitive upon any expression which might intimate a suspicion that any correspondence, or any despatch, had been purposely omitted by the Colonial Office. On a former occasion, when I observed upon the omission in this correspondence, of the letter of the Provincial Secretary of Canada to the Secretary of the Montreal Board of Trade, the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for the Colonies informed the House that no copy of any such letter had been received at the Colonial Office. Well, Sir, I take for granted that the statement of the hon. Gentleman is perfectly correct. But, Sir, I want to know how it is that a part of the correspondence of the Earl of Elgin and Kincardine should have been omitted? Having thought fit to lay before the House copies of the correspondence between the Governor General of Canada and the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies on the subject of the navigation laws, such portion of the community as feel interested in the preservation of the navigation laws feel deeply hurt that Her Majesty's Ministers should have selected those correspondences from Canada which tell in favour of the repeal of the navigation laws, and kept back correspondence from the sister colony of New Brunswick which is of a totally different character. The general complaint is, that Her Majesty's Government think that they are entitled, in laying correspondence before this and the other House of Parliament, to select such despatches only as tell for the policy of which they are themselves the advocates. It is because the noble Lord (Earl Grey) at the head of the Colonial Office, has avowed that it is his practice, and that he deems it his right, to lay before us only such of the correspondence as tells for his argument, that the public at large have become deeply sensitive on this subject. Such has been the course in this case. It is important that this House and the country should know the exact state of feeling in the colonies upon these subjects; and it is right also that the country should know the exact state of this matter between the Canadian colonists and the people of this country as regards the repeal of the navigation laws. When the Council of the Board of Trade at Montreal humbly reprimand the Governor General of Canada on this question, and insist upon his making known to the Queen and Parliament of Great Britain, that unless the measures of the Government should succeed in making the channel of commerce of the St. Lawrence as cheap as the channel of commerce of New York, the painful consequence-to use their own term-the painful consequence of the policy of this country in withdrawing from its colonies that protection to which they were entitled, will be most seriously to endanger the relation between them and the mother country. It is right repeal of the navigation laws, Earl Grey writes to Lord Kincardine to say that— On the 7th of July last, Earl Grey states, that the Government seriously believe and entertain a confident opinion and hope that this measure would pass this Session. Well, then, Sir, what is the effect? Why, that Earl Grey counsels the Earl of Elgin and Kincardine to excite the colonies to the belief that this measure for the repeal of the navigation laws will be of the utmost importance to the colonies; he leads them to hope, of course, that all their sanguine predictions will be fulfilled; and, of course, when they learn, within ten days afterwards, Her Majesty's Ministers have aban that Parliament should at least have laid before them the whole of the communication with the Board of Trade of Montreal "Her Majesty's Ministers hasten to assure Earl on this subject; and I must say, to me it Kincardine that Her Majesty's servants are fully does seem most surprising, that the Earl sensible of the extreme importance to Canada, of of Elgin and Kincardine, whose habits of the measure which is now under the consideration business are so well known and so well ap-fident opinion of its being passed into a law.” of the Legislature, and that they entertain a conpreciated, should have omitted to send to the Colonial Office a copy of this despatch. I wish to know whether he has received instructions to send home only such despatches as tell for the policy of the Government, or whether it is in consequence of his own notions only that he has omitted this despatch; or whether (as I am inclined to believe is the fact) the despatch was transmitted, and lost on its way to this country? Sir, the Government may feel that, if my Motion were agreed to in its present shape, the Earl of Elgin and Kincardine might, in his own defence, make some statement which would not be palatable to the Government. But their sensi-doned the measure, disappointment, distiveness upon this point is the very reason satisfaction, and discontent must prevail why I ought to press the Motion in the throughout the colonies. But, Sir, I mainterms in which I have framed it. Sir, in tain that it was the duty of Earl Grey, inmaking this Motion I cannot help entering stead of encouraging the colonies to enterinto some few observations upon the char- tain this vain and futile hope, that any comacter of this correspondence. Sir, the co-petition could put a colony that was so dislonies tell the House, in terms that cannot be very well misunderstood, that unless the effect of the repeal of the navigation laws should be to put the cost of transit by the St. Lawrence upon an equal footing with the cost of transit by way of New York, the result must necessarily be to dissolve the ties which connect the colonies with the mother country. Now, Sir, upon receiving memorials to that effect, what sort of answer ought to have been made by the Secretary of State for the Colonies? Why, it seems to me that he would have done his duty by showing he could possibly so reduce the cost of transit between Montreal and Great Britain as to put it upon an equal footing with the cost of transit between New York and this country. But, Sir, what is the answer that Earl Grey makes? Earl Grey states, that he has presented these memorials and these petitions to Her Majesty, and that they have been very graciously received; and on the 7th of July, within four days, as far as my recollection serves me, of the time when it became notorious to this House that Her Majesty's Ministers did not intend to proceed with their measure for the repeal of the navigation laws-within four days of the time that Her Majesty's Ministers formally announced that they had shelved the VOL. CI. S Third Series} advantageously situated by climate and position, as compared with New York, upon an equal footing with New York, it was the duty of Earl Grey to show that no repeal of the navigation laws could possibly give to the Canadians the advantages which were set forth. Sir, the foundation of the real complaint and grievance is, that there are great fluctuations, which they ascribe to the navigation laws, in the freights that are charged upon flour; that they are made inordinately high; that for four years they average 5s. 1d., while from New York they average only 2s. 1d.; that they have fluctuated to the extent of as much as 4s. in the year-all of which is ascribed to the navigation laws. Then, Sir, I maintain that Earl Grey should have observed in answer to these discontented colonists, that, in supposing that the average freights to New York were 2s. 1d., they were grossly deceived, for he might have stated to them with great truth that which he might have ascertained from the secretary of the Steam Packet Company, that the average freight during the last four years from New York has not been 2s. 1d., but 3s. 1d.; while I find that the fluctuation in the amount of freight in Canada, as compared with New York, is from 3s. 6d. to 7s. 6d., which is the gravamen of the complaint of these F But upon the most extortionate terms. petitioners. They complain that the fluctuations in freight between New York and England on flour is from 2s. 9d. to 8s. 6d.; so that while the fluctuation as complained of by the Canadian agriculturist is 4d., the fluctuation in freight in one year, between New York and this country, on flour, amounted to no less than 5s. 9d. So that how can it be believed that the repeal of the navigation laws is to secure the Canadians from fluctuations in freight? But, Sir, Earl Grey, instead of exciting the Canadian colonists to entertain hopes which he must have well known must be speedily disappointed if the navigation laws were to be repealed-Earl Grey, instead of leading them to suppose that the repeal of these laws would put them upon an equal footing with the merchants and farmers of the State of New York, should have reminded them that no repeal of those laws could possibly put Montreal upon an equal footing with New York-that no measures of legislation could put one country upon an equal footing with another with regard to which it has pleased Providence that the navigation should be closed by frost during five months out of the twelve-that no competition could pos-guine of those who hope that the iron hand sibly put Montreal upon an equal footing with New York, when Quebec, which is 175 miles lower down the stream than Montreal, requires a voyage of ten days, one, and fifteen days the other, more than is required with regard to the former, when it requires twenty days to pass from New York to Portsmouth, and thirty days, I understand, as an average, for the passage back from Portsmouth to New York; while the average voyage from Quebec to London is forty-five days, and the average voyage from London to Quebec fifty-five days. But, Sir, there are other difficulties. It has pleased Providence that the navigation of the St. Lawrence should be interrupted and made dangerous not only by shoals and rapids, but by fogs and snow storms. The result of this is that not only are from twenty to thirty days only required on an average as the voyage between New York and London, but the charge of insurance is in proportion to the risks; and while the insurance to New York averages from 40s. to 60s. per cent, the insurance from Montreal, even in the most favourable seasons, is never less than 41. per cent; thus the insurance rises as the season of autumn approaches at portions of the year it rises from 61. to 91. per cent; in the month of September no insurance is given, except If you of competition will bring down everything ships. This statement shows that twentyone of these firms are bankrupt, and nineteen others are about to stop payment. Why, Sir, one of the most successful trades in Northern Canada has been shipbuilding. Foreigners, under the new system, will at once avail themselves of that wealthy branch of Canadian trade. Well, Sir, but what do the Canadians say? They tell you that as long as the fostering policy of this country was maintained towards the colony of Canada, they had no reason to complain of the navigation laws; for that fostering policy, which admitted the flour of Canada upon favoured terms into this country, more than fully compensated for any disadvantages she might be supposed to be under from the monopoly, if it be monopoly, arising from the navigation laws. But, Sir, the object of my Motion is to secure that no Governor General-if it be the object of the Governor General, which I cannot help doubting-that no Governor General, and no Minister connected with the Colonial or any other office under the Crown, shall presume to present to this House partial extracts of any correspondence, or shall presume to lay before this House information connected with his department intended for the purpose, and calculated not to tell the whole truth, and not cast light upon the subject in question which it may be in the power of his department to throw upon it. And my object is to learn how it comes about that the Earl of Elgin and Kincardine is treading the steps so condemned by the public at large, namely, that adopted by the Colonial Office, of laying before Parliament only so much information as favours its own particular views of the subject. The noble Lord concluded by proposing his Motion. for what had not been laid before the House, would suppose that Lord Elgin had been to blame in not sending the correspondence which had taken place between the Provincial Secretary of Canada and the Secretary of the Montreal Board of Trade; and that he ought to be reprimanded for that neglect, and ordered to send the correspondence forthwith. Now, the fact is, that on the 31st of May, Lord Elgin writes a despatch to my noble Friend Lord Grey, in which he informs him that a correspondence has taken place, and that there are memorials to both Houses of Parliament, which he sends for the consideration of my noble Friend. This correspondence consists, besides the memorial, of a letter of the President of the Montreal Board of Trade, in answer to the Provincial Secretary. In answer, the Provincial Secretary reproves the President of the Montreal Board of Trade for the particular expression in the original letter, in which he said that unless the navigation of the St. Lawrence was to be made free to the United States, the inevitable result would be the dissolving of the ties which connect the latter with the mother country. Now, it appears that after this reply was written, there was another answer from the Secretary of the Montreal Board of Trade, defending the expression which had been originally used. Lord Elgin wrote on the 31st. Whether it was that he had not received that reply at the same time when the despatch was sent, or whether he considered it to be of no great importance, I am sure I know not; but I know I consider that the matter is of very little importance. He would not oppose the Motion if the terms were so altered as not to imply any blame upon Lord Elgin. LORD G. BENTINCK: In asking leave to withdraw my Motion, I may perhaps be allowed to correct a mistake into which the noble Lord has fallen. There is one despatch from Lord Elgin, dated the 15th of June. The omission of which I complain is in a paper dated the 8th of June, and was published in the newspapers on the 13th of June, and it arrived simultaneously with that dated the 15th of June. So far as to the noble Lord's dates. The noble Lord is also under a mistake in stating that the communication from the Secretary LORD J. RUSSELL said: Mr. Speaker, I do not think it necessary or convenient, at this time, to enter into a discussion whether the repeal of the navigation laws would or would not be useful to Canada, or whether it would answer the objects which the Montreal Board of Trade have in view. I think that such a discussion will far better take place when any measure with regard to the navigation laws is proposed. The only question, as I understand the noble Lord on this occasion, is for an address for what has been omitted in the correspondence now before the House. of the Montreal Board of Trade was writThe objection to the noble Lord's Motion is simply this, that his Motion appears to convey an incorrect notion of the facts of the case. Any person reading this address ten by that person ex mere motu, and contained merely the expression of his own opinion. Such is not the case. The Secretary wrote by direction of the Montreal |