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time that he enjoyed another place of trust and emolument in the state; but it will also be in the recollection of the House that the nobleman (the earl of Harrowby), who immediately succeeded lord Melville, held the office wholly unconnected with, and independent of, any other. The right hon. gentleman opposite (Mr. Tierney), my immediate predecessor, was similarly situated when Treasurer of the Navy, as was I myself, and the late Mr. Sheridan, who succeeded me in the office. Again, with respect to the hour a-day which the right hon. gentleman found sufficient for the discharge of his duties, without pretending to make any comparison between the relative quantity of business to be gotten through by that right hon. individual and my self, I am free to confess, that I was either more slow, or less fortunate; for that period was never sufficient to enable me to execute the business of Treasurer of the Navy. That business, undoubtedly, is not of so engrossing and absorbing a quality that he can have no time to spare to other occupations; the duties of his situation may be discharged, and a considerable share of leisure remain, which may be devoted to other purposes. But the Presidency of the Board of Trade is a widely different office one of a nature so engrossing, so absolutely overwhelming, that it can never leave any time to its possessor for other employments; so that, even if the Treasurership of the Navy is not, the Presidency of the Board of Trade is, incompatible with a distinct and separate occupation, be it of what kind it may. But if I am asked whether the Treasurer of the Navy will not have more spare time

than it is necessary to bestow on the miscellaneous business with which government is overwhelmed? I at once answer, no. I feel persuaded that immense benefits must result from the application of the surplus time of persons whose leisure, like the Treasurer of the Navy, is not entirely absorbed by an attention to the duties of their office; and that by these means much of the superabundant business of the state may be transacted. It may be sufficient to allude to one of the extra-official duties imposed upon the ministers of the crown-namely, the necessity of hearing cases in the privy council. I have no hesitation in saying it would be utterly impossible for me, and, considering the nature of their avocations, for my hon. friends, the Secretary for the Home Department, the chancellor of the Exchequer, or the President of the Board of Trade, to attend for the purpose of hearing causes in the privy council. But the Treasurer of the Navy is differently circumstanced, and the place he fills is precisely that sort of office which is best calculated for being applied, and, in the purest and best times of parliament and the British government, has been always applied, to such subsidiary purposes purposes best suited to forward the business of the state, and, deprived of the benefit of which, public affairs could not but suffer immense detriment. In 1782 the Board of Trade was considered as a sinecure; but now, when from the increase of commerce, and other causes, that department had become one of the most important in the state an adequate provision ought to be made for the functionaries connected with it. The amount of salary in

tended to be granted has not been disputed, and all we require is, that it should be annexed to the Presidency of the Board of Trade, the duties of which my right hon. friend has shown himself so capable of discharging, and not to another office, which his attention to the former renders it impossible for him to fill.

With a view of affording time to fall upon some arrangement which might reconcile the opinions of all parties, and obviate the necessity of a division which could not but be unpleasant to Mr. Huskisson, Mr. Calcraft moved an amendment, that the Chairman should report progress, and ask leave to sit again. It was lost by 83 votes against 44. An amendment then moved by Mr. Hume, "That a salary of 5,000l. should be given to the President of the Board of Trade; and that it is expedient that an inquiry should be instituted to ascertain if any, and what, alteration can be made in the office and salary of the Treasurer of the Navy," shared the same fate.

On the motion for bringing up the report (10th April), the opposition was again renewed by Mr. Hobhouse, on the same ground, that the measure was merely a pretence for increasing the means of governing by patronage, by splitting one placeman into two; and lord Glenorchy asked, how the House of Commons could prove any check upon the executive government, if they were to suffer such a continual influx of placemen? This called forth from Mr. Canning a very animated justification of ministers from the charge of seeking to derive influence from such expedients. Never, he said, had a government gone on with so

few accessions of strength in this way. He thought, indeed, they had carried the principle of abstinence, in this particular, to too great an extent; and he gave the House fair notice that he intended to protest against this abstinence on the part of government. Mr. Pitt, who was equal to any ten of them in debate, thought that he could not safely enter the lists against the opposition of the day, without the assistance of the Master of the Rolls; and that officer had given his aid to government in the House of Commons until latter times, besides another law officer, who answered in the civil law to the Attorney-general, the King's advocate. Now, was it not most material to the present administration to have the aid of these officers in the House of Commons: not only because of inferiority in point of talent, which alone would be a sufficient plea, but because of the accidental, but formidable, circumstance of the present opposition being composed almost entirely of lawyers? There never had been a time in which the gentlemen of the long robe prevailed so much in the councils of the opposition. Of what advantage would it not be to minis ters to have such a character as the Master of the Rolls to come to their assistance, when the contest ran high with the legal gentlemen? In all their chancery de bates, for instance, the authority of the Master of the Rolls would go for something, at least. Upon that, and similar questions of an equally technical description, he, and his right hon. friends about him, were totally at a loss-they did not know their ground; and whether they determined to advance, or to retire, they were alike

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exposed to all the perils of igno rance. In such cases the legiti mate authority of that officer would be found highly available. Again, never,still the present time, was the office of Judge Advocate filled by a person not a member of the House. These facts rebutted the general accusation, that they were looking out for placemen to recruit the ranks of government, regardless of any other object. If such had been their tactics, and if they had not resolved to stand upon their own strength, what abundant op portunities had they not missed, of which they might have availed themselves, without any one being able to gainsay them? To the proposition, that the Treasurer of the Navy should not be a parliamentary officer, he felt stronger objections than even to diminish the salary. He knew of no law which obliged the king to send to parliament for his ministers; but was there no good sense in selecting them from that House? Was there no advantage in the choice of the crown being obliged to stand the test of that House, in a minister's being put to the proof there, and in his being known to that House and to the public previously to his elevation to office? While those men only were raised to favour " whose talents and eminence were known to that House," there was a great security against favouritism. The effect of the choice falling elsewhere than in that House, would tend to lower the standard of public officers-to cause a degraded and demoralized class to spring into the seats of power, which, so long as the eye of parliament and of the public were upon them, would not be the case. Among these officers-among those VOL. LXVIII.

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to whom those principles applied, the Treasurer of the Navy, he contended, was one. He had always held a parliamentary eminence of a rank next in importance to the ministers of the crown. He spoke with sincerity, when he said, that he thought the office of Treasurer of the Navy ought to remain a parliamentary office; and he spoke disinterestedly, because it would not add the value of a hair's weight to the preponderance of government. Were the officers of go vernment to be excluded, as seemed to be the doctrine of hon. gen tlemen opposite, from the House of Commons, the consequence would be, that the offices of state, of every grade, would become the ob jects of a general scramble to að host of favourites, instead of being, as they now were, and as, in this parliamentary constitution, they must ever remain, the reward of public conduct, and public talents.

The House again divided, whend the motion of the chancellor ofs the Exchequer was carried by au majority of eleven. Mr. Canning thereupon said, that as the opposi tion to the measure was so strong, he should not feel himself called upon to press it. He viewed with s regret the small support which had i been given to it; and though, as al matter of principle, he was ready to defend it, yet, on the ground of expediency, he would abandon it.

Mr. Peel still continued, with unabated industry, his most useful labours for the simplification and improvement of the Criminal Code. On the 9th of March he introduced a bill to consolidate the various acts encumbering the statute-book, and confusing each other, which related to offences [1]

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against property. The number of persons, he said, who came under their direct operation yearly, was scarcely credible. In 1825, 14,437 individuals had been charged with various offences, and of these 12,530 had been committed for the crime of theft. During the last seven years, 247 prisoners had been tried for forgery; 111 for murder; 50 for arson; and 43 for perjury; but the number of those who had been tried for larceny was no less than 43,000. To simplify, therefore, the statutes which formed the law relating to such an offence, was an important object. These amounted to ninety-two in number; and provisions regarding theft were frequently found mixed up with other matters, among which nobody would think of looking for them. Thus, a law providing for the better preservation of hollies, quicksets, &c. was comprised in an act for the preservation of the revenues of his majesty's customs, and the regulation of custom-house officers in Senegambia. A clause providing punishment for another penal offence was contained in an act permitting the importation of a better sort of barley called bigg. He had now collected the scattered enactments and reduced the whole mass within the compass of a bill of thirty-two pages. By a single clause, he would get rid at once of twelve statutes against reset of theft. One act was directed against the knowing receivers of stolen lead, iron, or brass; another against the receivers of stolen pewter; a third, against the receivers of stolen bank notes, and so on. He should simply substitute for them a single provision, making the receiving of any money, goods, chattels, bill, or security, a felo

ny, and the party guilty to be indictable as a principal, or as an accessory after the fact. In the law concerning accessories, he wished to remove a most inconvenient distinction, by which, although an accessory before the fact might be tried either in the county where the crime was committed, or in that in which he had become an accessory, it was not so in the case of an accessory after the fact. Two persons concerned in a late burglary at

earl Cowper's residence in Hertfordshire, from whence upwards of 2,000l. had been stolen, had been tried and executed for the offence; but one man, who had been an accessory, escaped, in ́ consequence of its having been found impossible to try him in Hertfordshire. He had been subquently convicted at the Surrey assizes, at an expense of no less than 4261.

He should propose

that in future an accessory after
the fact should be liable to be tried
in the county where the act was
committed. Farther, the proposed
bill would supply several deficien-
cies which were to be found in the
existing law. At present, to com-
mit a robbery in ready-furnished
lodgings was a high crime, and a
trespass on a river running through
a gentleman's estate was a grave
offence; but to commit a robbery
in unfurnished lodgings, or a tres-
pass on a boundary stream, was
no offence at all.
He thought
that all property deserved protec-
tion, and intended to remedy this
defect. In the same way, it was
larceny to steal the securities of
property vested in our own funds,
but it was no crime to steal the
securities of property vested in the
funds of foreign countries. He
proposed to place both on the same
footing. Another important im-

provement which he would offer to the consideration of the House would be, to give judges the same power of awarding prosecutors their costs in cases of misdemeanour which they already possessed in cases of felony. To leave to indi viduals the expense of indicting and carrying through criminal proceed ings against public offences, appear ed to him to be a niggardly and inexpedient course. It changed the nature of such prosecutions, and gave them more of a personal than a public character. It was moreover an additional and a grievous hardship upon individuals who had been injured, that, when they sought redress, they should be loaded with the expense of obtaining it. He knew one instance in which a gentleman having, with much public spirit, prosecuted a constable whom he de tected in gross misconduct in his office, found that, by doing so, he had incurred an expense of 801. The consequence was, that, in nine cases out of ten, criminals es caped, because the parties injured compromised the offence, or put up with the wrong, rather than subject themselves to the cost of a prosecution; and he believed that no more important benefit could be conferred on the community, than the transfer of the expense of prosecuting criminals from the hands of private individuals to those of government.

The bill, however, was not carried through during the session, Mr. Peel stating that, from the multiplicity of objects which it comprehended, and the very minute nature of the details, it was ne cessary to proceed in it with the most cautious deliberation.

Another bill which was introduced by the Home Secretary, and

passed into an act, had for its object the removal of certain inconveniencies belonging to the administration of the criminal law generally, and in particular the amendment of the existing regulations relative to admitting to bail in cases of felony. Considering, said Mr. Peel, the great number of persons committed on charges of felony, and the large proportion of them ultimately discharged, either from the insufficiency of evidence, or for other reasons, he could not but think it proper that, under sufficient safeguards, the powers of magistrates to admit to bail ought to be extended. An alteration of the existing system was desirable, not only as it affected the liberty of individuals, but because a man never came out of prison so good a member of society as he was before his committal. At present no discretion was left to the magistrate; he was bound to commit on every charge of felony ; and therefore it was that he proposed to enact that, when a prisoner was taken before one or more magistrates, on a charge of felony, supported by positive and "credible" evidence, or such as, if not contradicted, would establish his guilt, he should be committed by the said justice or justices: but that, if the prisoner were taken before one magistrate only, and the evidence produced were not sufficient to raise a presumption of his guilt, the magistrate should remand him until he could be brought before two or more justices; and if, on taking the prisoner before them, the evidence produced were not sufficient to raise a presumption of

*7 Geo. 4. c. 64, "An Act for improving the administration of Criminal Justice in England.”

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