Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

management, but of fraud the most gross, and oppression the most profligate. In the year 1817, nineteen gentlemen were elected to the Magistracy, of whom six accepted office only on condition. So gross and insulting, however, had the abuses become, that those Magistrates who were going out at the end of the year, from some feelings, whether of compunction or hypocrisy, or of tardy conversion to just principles, he could not determine, thought proper to put upon record their sentiments respecting the state of the burgh. This declaration was in substance, that they, the ex-magistrates, on looking at the calamitous situation of the burgh, were desirous, in justice to themselves, to state their opinions on certain topics relative to the City Treasury. They feel it their duty to express their decided conviction, that the mode of electing the Magistrates and Town Council was radically defective, giving to a small number of individuals an undue preponderance of authority, and fostering a system of concealment, under which the best Magistrates became useless from their ignorance. To the existence of this mode of election, and the want of all control over the expenditure, they ascribed the heavy calamity which had befallen the burgh. What, however, was worse than all this iniquity, was, that under the present system it was legal; and if its authors were called to that bar, and chose to add boldness to their delinquency, they might assert, "We have done all that you charge us with doing, and defy you to call us to acAnother point to which it was necessary to advert in the consideration of this warrant, was the very different course pursued upon the disfranchisement of the burgh of Montrose. In that case a warrant had been

count."

granted for renovating the burgh, and even conferring on it a new set or constitution. Why had the learned Lord abandoned his precedent? Why had he acted so differently in the case of Aberdeen, which called so much more imperatively for a similar reformation? He could not see the possibility of defending both proceedings; though he certainly approved of that with respect to Montrose, as justified both by policy and practice, and he hoped by law also. In Montrose a poll-warrant had been granted, or, in other words, the election of magistrates was vested in the burgesses at large; but the warrant to Aberdeen was altogether sui generis, such as he believed had never before been framed in Scotland. His Lordship then went into a variety of collateral topics; and, before concluding, reserved to himself the right of moving, if necessary, for a copy of the report of the law officers of the Crown of England and Scotland, in addition to the papers already specified.

The Lord Advocate said it had never been doubted, that the failure of that burgh arose from a great public undertaking, which had not turned out so lucrative as the Magistrates had been warranted to expect. He denied the charge as to forged minutes, and was sure that in the proceedings before the Court of Session, and in other proceedings instituted by persons opposed to the Magistrates, that charge had never been brought forward. As to the mode in which the election was set aside, the Noble Lord was incorrect, when he said, that setting aside the Magistrates disfranchised a burgh. It was the same he believed, as declaring in England, that a borough was not competent to regulate itself. From the statement of the Noble Lord, the House would be led to believe, that the election of Magistrates

in 1817 was set aside, on the ground of lavish expenditure of the funds; but the only ground stated before the Court of Session was, that of the forty electors, who by the set of the burgh were required to be present, one man of the name of Rae was found to be disqualified because he could not produce a burgess's ticket. The Noble Lord was wrong in supposing that there never had been a crown-warrant in a similar case. In 1746 the election for this very burgh was set aside by the Magistrates being ousted from the town by the rebels, and a similar warrant to the present had then been issued. In Montrose the election had been set aside, because all the Magistrates had unanimously united in what was illegal; in Aberdeen, the election had been set aside in consequence only of an error arising from mistake. In Montrose the election had been illegal, since it had been conducted on principles that had been condemn ed, even in the reign of Charles II. under a most corrupt and profligate administration. In Aberdeen the error was only casual. The learned Lord then took an opportunity of paying some high compliments to the judicial authorities of Scotland, and defended, in very strong terms, the conduct of the council of Aberdeen. A pretty long discussion here ensued; but in the end, the Noble Lord's motion was negatived by only a majority of 5.

On the 6th of April, the Lord Advocate obtained leave to bring in the bill which he had last year introduced, and subsequently withdrawn, for regulating the mode of accounting in the Royal Burghs of Scotland. The second reading was fixed for the 26th, but postponed, and afterwards arrested by the success of Lord Archibald Hamilton's motion for the appointment of a Committee

on the petitions for burgh reform, which we shall give some account of immediately. In the mean time, a great number of petitions from various places were presented against the bill, the provisions of which, though it assumed the accountability of the magistrates of burghs, and proposed to appoint auditors to examine and pass their accounts, were by no means satisfactory to a great majority of the burgesses of Scotland.

On the 6th of May, Lord Archibald Hamilton, in rising to bring on his motion for referring the petitions of the royal burghs to a Committee, said, that after the numerous petitions which had been received by the House, it was unnecessary for him to say any thing of the oppression under which the petitioners laboured. He therefore thought that there could be no rational objection to his motion for a committee. It had been stated, that this subject was merely used as a cloak for Parliamentary Reform; he denied this assertion most positively, and said that it might be seen how unfounded it was from reading the petitions themselves. The only indirect way in which this motion touched upon Parliamentary Reform was, that where the Magistrates were self-elected, they returned the members to Parliament. Now the burgesses wished to have the same share in the election of their magistrates as their ma gistrates had in the election of their representatives. This was the only way in which the subject of a reform in Parliament was connected with that of a reform in the burgh system. He must say a word or two on an observation which had fallen from the Lord Advocate on these petitions: 1st, the petitioners were not numerous: 2dly, they were not interested persons. The objection to

ken by the Noble and Learned Lord, that these petitions came from the burgesses themselves only, and not from the country at large, was an objection equally frivolous and unmeaning. What did the Noble Lord require? If they were numerous, he disputed their respectability; and if they were but few, he contended that they were not of sufficient interest to require the House's interference. The evils which they had complained of on a former occasion had not been denied; the system which they complained of had not been defended. The Noble and Learned Lord at one time denied the existence of those evils; at another, objected to entertain the question, on the ground that the country was satisfied with the present state of things; and at another, that he was not assured of the respectability of the petitioners. But would the Noble Lord, or any of his friends, stand up and say, that if their allegations were true, they ought not to be taken into immediate consideration? The Noble Lord then proceeded to enumerate the grievances under which the burgesses presently laboured, and concluded by moving, "that the several petitions presented during the present session of Parliament, from the royal burghs of Scotland, be referred to a Committee, to examine the matter thereof, and to report their opinion thereon accordingly."

The motion was opposed by Mr W. Dundas, Mr W. Douglas, Mr Boswell, Lord Binning, and Mr Canning, and defended by the Hon. Mr Primrose, Mr J. P. Grant and Mr Wynn, and after a brief reply from Lord A. Hamilton, the House divided, when the motion was carried by a majority of 149 to 144.

In the early part of the Session a bill had been introduced into Parlia

ment, and carried through its several stages with great dispatch, for facilitating the administration of justice in Scotland, by regulating and giving permanency to the Jury Court, which had been originally established on the recommendation of the Commission, appointed some years ago to inquire into the state of the Courts of Law in Scotland. This bill was intended to remedy some of the defects in the original constitution of the Jury Court, and particularly to save a great deal of the unnecessary expense incurred by the preliminary proceedings before cases were sent to the jury, by authorising the Lord Ordinary, in the first instance, or, if he should think fit, on reference to the Divisions of the Court of Session, to send the case before a jury. All matters of law, were, as heretofore, confined to the jurisdiction of the Court and the Lord Ordinary; and the bill, moreover, provided for the presence of two Judges in the Jury Court, and enabled them to consult the Court of Session, and to pass acts of sederunt for the regulation of their procedure. On the 24th of June, however, some time after the bill had passed into a law, Lord A. Hamilton brought forward a motion, that an address be presented to the Prince Regent, praying that the appointments created by the recent Jury Court act might not be filled up till one month after the next session of Parliament, or until the commissioners on courts of justice in Scotland should have made a report regarding the said court. The reasons alleged as the grounds of this motion, were, the rapidity with which the bill had been carried through Parliament, and the appointment of several new, and, as the Noble Lord observed, superfluous officers.

The Solicitor-General and Lord

Castlereagh opposed the motion, on the grounds, that as the jurisdiction of the Court had been extended, such an increase was rendered necessary, and that the suspension of the enactments of a bill, after it had passed, would not only form a dangerous precedent, but would be a virtual acknowledgment that Parliament had not properly legislated on a subject which it had previously advised with competent authorities. These considerations seemed to weigh with the Noble Lord, who, in consequence, consented to withdraw his motion. On the 12th of July, Lord Archibald Hamilton brought up the Report of the Committee on the Royal Burghs of Scotland, which, after an attempt by Lord Binning to give it the go-by, was received and ordered

to be printed. The committee appear to have chiefly confined their attention to the four burghs of Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dundee and Dunfermline, of the affairs of which they give an ample and detailed account; entering into the specific complaints of the petitioners, and carefully stating the grounds upon which they come to the conclusion," that the general allegations of the petitioners, as far as the committee have yet examined them, appear to be very warranted by the evidence."

Parliament, as we have already stated, re-assembled in November; and on the 22d of December Lord A. Hamilton moved the re-appointment of the Committee, which, after some opposition from Mr W. Dundas and Mr C. Forbes, was agreed to.

CHAPTER X.

FRANCE.

State of parties.-Meeting of the Legislative Body.-M. Barthélemy's Resolution relative to the law of elections carried in the Chamber of Peers, but thrown out in the Chamber of Deputies.-Laws relative to the Press. Debates thereon.-The Budget.-State of the French Finances.-Ways and Means.-Discussions on the Budget.-State of parties at the close of the Session.-Position of the new Ministry.-Disturbances at Nismes.

TOWARDS the close of the year 1818, the aspect of French affairs was by no means such as circumstances would have led us to anticipate. The convention of the 9th of October, which finally decreed the evacuation of France by the Army of Observation, appears neither to have allayed the heats of faction, nor to have added to the popularity of the Ministry. This was sufficiently demonstrated by the result of the elections which immediately followed, and which, the Ministry no doubt calculated, that that generous act on the part of the Allied Sovereigns would powerfully influence in their favour. In defiance of all their exertions, however, many of the popular candidates were elected by immense majorities; and even the more temperate of the Liberals, to whom they looked for support, openly withdrew and joined the popular party. La Fayette, whom, after a severe struggle, they had suc ceeded in defeating at the election for the department of the Seine and

Marne, was, in the course of six days afterwards, returned by a great majority for the department of the Sarthe; Manuel, who had started as a candidate for Paris, was chosen deputy for La Vendée without solicitation; and Benjamin Constant, though he had failed in carrying his election for the capital, nevertheless proved, by the numbers he had polled, that the influence of the Ministry was on the wane. Numerous other instances might, if necessary, be brought forward in corroboration of a fact, which, all circumstances considered, seems not a little difficult to account for.

By guaranteeing the substantial advantages, or at least changes, which had been effected by the Revolution, by confirming the sales of the national property, by establishing religious toleration, by declaring the equality of every French subject in the eye of the law, and, above all, by laying the basis of a representative system, the Constitutional Char

« AnteriorContinuar »