House, but he hoped that a committee | why, when the other institutions of the would be granted. country were in a flourishing state, this alone was in such singular and deep distress. It was surely, then, the duty of the House to investigate the cause. For his own part, he had formed an opinion, which he had stated, at various times, to the House. At present, he rose merely to say that he should give his vote in favour of the motion as he thought the distress of the petitioners demanded a speedy investigation. Mr. Courtenay rose amidst loud cries of "question!" He said, he hoped the House would indulge him for a few minutes. He assured them he did not intend to go into the general principles of the measure proposed; not that he did not consider the question a most important one, but because he did not consider it necessary now to enlarge upon it. He thought that the hon. member for Newark would admit with him, that unless there was a probability that something could be done in a committee to alleviate the distresses of the poor weavers, it would be better not to go into a committee at all. He was ready to concede many of the points which had been urged by the hon. gentleman; and he was also ready to grant, for the sake of argument, that great distress prevailed amongst the manufacturing classes. But, then, what was the remedy that was proposed? Why, either prohibition or protection, or some other expedient of which he had not yet heard. Now, it was almost the universal opinion of the House, that the principle of prohibition ought not to be adopted. Then, again, it was said, that if the principle of prohibition was not conceded, some protection ought to be granted. Now, with regard to protection, the question was only as to the amount. He, however, contended that we were, at this moment, giving the highest protection which it was possible for us to give. If it were possible to give any other protection, he felt quite sure that the petitioners would not be satisfied. They would be contented with nothing short of actual prohibition. He thought, indeed, that the measure which his right hon. friend was about to bring forward, would be the most beneficial for all parties. A committee of inquiry would be of no service to them; and he much doubted, whether the constituents of the hon. mover of the present motion would not now wish him to withdraw it. - Mr. Western said, he should vote for the motion of his hon. friend, the member for Coventry. He thought it was the positive duty of the House to appoint a committee to inquire into the universal distress which at present pervaded the whole of that class of persons from whom this application was made. The right hon. the President of the Board of Trade, had not attempted to solve the problem, VOL. XXI. Mr. Peachy expressed his determination to support the motion of the hon. member for Coventry. He spoke in terms of commendation of the patience and loyalty of the distressed silk-manufacturers; who had, on that account, strong claims on the attention of the government. The expectations formed of the free-trade system had certainly been disappointed. Mr. Fyler said, that at that late hour he did not feel himself authorised to occupy the House for any length of time, in the observations which he might have to make in reply. He should reserve those observations until the subject should come to be discussed in the committee; when he should take an opportunity of remarking on the proposition of government. He begged leave to state distinctly, that he had heard nothing in the course of this debate, to shake him from the resolution which he had previously formed. On the contrary, every thing had conduced to confirm his belief in the necessity of appointing a committee. He thought that, of all the arguments which had been urged against the committee, one only was worthy of observation; and that was the argument which was founded upon the delay that would thereby be occasioned. He was ready to admit, that it would necessarily cause some delay, and that that delay would be attended with many inconveniences. But when he made this admission, he should also make use of the language which had been used upon another occasion, and say, that as the matter was a matter of expediency, the House had only to choose been two evils. Of these evils he thought the delay occasioned by the appointment of a committee would be the least; and he should therefore persist in his motion. He thought, indeed, that unless some investigation were made, the scene of distress would be again presented to the House before the termination of next winter. It had been 2 F contended by some of the hon. members | jects. He was about to draw their attenwho had opposed his motion, that the tion to the state of the criminal jurispru object sought to be obtained by the appoint-dence of this country, and that of the exment of a committee was, a recurrence to the old system of prohibition; but as nothing of that sort had been alluded to, either by himself or by those who spoke on his side of the question, he did not think that it ought to be drawn as a necessary inference. He thought it would be wise to appoint a committee, if it were only to appease the manufacturers; who would derive considerable consolation from the knowledge of the fact, that government had given their situation a full and ample consideration. There was one thing which had much surprised him in the course of the debate, and that was what had fallen from the hon. member for Callington. That hon. member had told the House, that the Silk Trade was a condemned trade an expression which he thought was wholly misapplied. Now all that he asked at the hands of the House was,-strike, but hear him; investigate before you deny. The House divided:-for the original motion 31; against it 149; majority 118. The House then resolved itself into a committee on the Silk Trade Acts, in which the resolutions proposed by Mr. V. Fitzgerald were agreed to. HOUSE OF COMMONS. MINUTES.] The LORD ADVOCATE of Scotland brought in covert, idiots, lunatics, and persons of unsound mind." Mr. LENNARD gave notice, that he would, on the 21st of May, move for leave to bring in a bill, "to repeal the 3rd and 4th clauses of act 10 Geo. 2. c. 28., which empower the Lord Chamberlain to prohibit the acting any new play or entertainment on the stage."-Mr. HENRY FANE gave notice, that he would, on the 5th of May, move a new writ for East Retford, as an amendment on the motions of Mr. Tennyson and Mr. N. Calvert. isting police established for the prevention of crime as well as its detection. It would be in the recollection of the House, that committees of the House had been appointed to investigate this subject, as early as the year 1770, and again in 1793. Committees also were appointed in 1812, 1818, 1822, and lastly in 1828. These different committees had been the result of alarm at some remarkable or unprecedented outrage at the time; or the effect, perhaps, of a general conviction, that crimes and offences against the peace of society were so much on the increase, as to require an increased and corresponding vigour on the part of our police, with a view to protect the public, and prescribe more effectual remedies for its preserva tion. But, unfortunately, those committees, however their reports might be creditáble to the labours and investigation of the individuals who composed them, produced no effect in improving the law materially; and the subject was lost sight of, almost as soon as the cause of the recent alarm had subsided. No effectual measure, therefore, was recommended by the committees, or adopted at the suggestion of individuals in parliament. Whoever had read the reports of those committees, particularly those of later date, would find the state of our police to be most defective. It had been pretty clearly ascertained, that it was altogether unsafe, and that it had been so for a long period, to commit the care of the lives and properties of the people of the metropolis and its vicinity to the charge of the parochial watch, during that part of the twenty-four hours which constituted the object of their very lax and inefficient protection. He might rest his case on the report of the police committee, which METROPOLIS POLICE IMPROVEMENT lay on the table, and which clearly showed BILL.] Mr. Secretary Peel rose. He the necessity of some alteration in the said, he was desirous, now that the atten- existing means for the prevention and tion of the House and the public was no detection of crime; but he thought it longer directed to a subject which had so would be more satisfactory to the House. long excited the warmest feeling and the and the public, to state generally the most anxious solicitude of all classes of grounds upon which he felt himself imper his majesty's subjects, both Catholic and ratively called upon to induce the House, Protestant, of leading the House to the to abandon the present system of protect consideration of a topic of considerable ing property and guarding the safety of interest as respected the preservation of the person. If they compared the state the rights of property, as well as the pro- of crime in the metropolis with that in tection of the persons of his majesty's sub-other parts of the country, or in England both in the years 1821 and 1828 showed, that crime had increased twenty-six per cent, while population had increased but eleven and a half per cent. and Wales at large, the result would be very unfavourable to the former. If, for example, they selected the last year, and calculated the proportion which the number of criminals in London and Middlesex Although it did not belong properly to bore to the population, they would find his present subject, he thought that, as that not less than one person in every he had alluded to the state of crime in three hundred and eighty-three had been the country at large, he might, with satiscommitted for some crime or other in faction to the House, state, that though 1828. If, in the same manner, they de- the number of committals had increased termined the ratio between the number of to so great a degree of late years in Lonpersons similarly committed within the don and Middlesex, crime had very sensame period in England and Wales, the sibly diminished in many parts of the proportion would be found to be one cri- country. The increase of committals in minal to every eight hundred and twenty- forty-four counties of England and Wales, two of the entire population. The result in 1827, as compared with the preceding of a comparison of both, as he had stated, year, amounted altogether to 1,914; the would be very unfavourable to the metro-decrease in six counties, including the polis. It might be said, perhaps, that a different ratio of increase of population in London and Middlesex and the country at large, would account for this difference in the amount of crime; but an examination would show, that the great increase of crime in the former could not be explained by the increased number of its inhabitants. Neither, he was sorry also to say, would the result be favourable to the metropolis, if they compared its present amount of crime with that of any other period, or compared either with that of other parts of the country. In 1821, the number of persons committed in London and Middlesex amounted to 2,480, the population being 1,167,000. In 1828, he regretted to say, the committals for crime amounted to 3,560. There was no official return of the amount of increase of population in 1828; but, assuming it was in a corresponding ratio to that of other periods, the number of inhabitants in London and Middlesex would be 1,349,000 in that year. The result, therefore, of a comparison between the rate of increase of population and the rate of increase of crime in the metropolis, showed that the former was not in proportion to, and could not account for, the great increase of the latter; for there was an increase of forty-one per cent in the number of committals in 1828 over that of 1821; while there was an increase of population of only fifteen and a half per cent. Increase of population, then, did not explain the great increase of crime in London and Middlesex. Neither did the rate of increase of the number of commitments in England and Wales correspond with that of the inhabitants for a comparison of city of Bristol, amounted to 167: leaving a nett increase of 1,657 committals for crime in the year 1827. But if they proceeded further, and compared the year 1828 with 1827, they would find a decrease of committals in thirty-five counties, of 1,656; and an increase in fourteen counties, including Bristol, of 299; leaving a nett decrease of committals for crime, during the last year, in England and Wales, of 1,357. This statement, he thought, was some consolation for the unfavourable comparison which the metropolis afforded-the rather, as the diminu. tion of committals generally throughout the country, during the last year, was not at all owing to any laxity of duty on the part of the country police, but to an actual diminution of the amount of crime. This diminution would appear more striking on a comparison of the total number of committals in the last and preceding year. In the year 1827, the total number of persons committed for crime in England and Wales was 17,921; in the year 1828, the number of committals amounted to but 16,566. In some counties the decrease was very remarkable. In Lancashire, for instance, there were but 448 commitments last year, while there were not less than 2,457 in 1827. In Somersetshire, the number of committals was one hundred and fifty-one less last year than in the preceding. The decrease in Yorkshire was 129; and so on in other places, until they came to what he was sorry to call the unfavourable exception of London and Middlesex; in which there was an increase of 135 committals in 1828, over those of 1827. It was not, he regretted to say, only in one year that + London and Middlesex afforded a proof parochial authorities. He was satisfied, no efficient police prevention of crime, nor any satisfactory protection for property or the person. This was the conclusion which the police committee had come to, and which the evidence of persons most interested in the subject made manifest. In fact, it was the conclusion which every one who inquired into our present watchhouse system must arrive at. The chief requisites of an efficient police were unity of design and responsibility of its agents both of which were not only not ensured by the present parochial watch-house system, but were actually prevented by it. The House was aware, that each parish had its own watch-house establishment, its own watchmen, its own discipline, and its own responsibility; that it was left to the It was no easy matter to determine parochial authorities alone, to devise and what those other means or causes were, enforce and control, the means of prowhich had occasioned this frightful differ-tecting the property and persons of its ence between the increase of crime and the increase of population, of not less than thirty-six per cent in a series of years. Many intelligent gentlemen, who took an interest in the subject, had endeavoured to investigate and determine those causes; but he must still say--and he spoke in the presence of many hon. members who had taken an active part in the police committee-without having arrived at any satisfactory conclusion as to the real nature of those causes. He feared that one of those causes was the in、creased mechanical ingenuity of the age; by which the perpetration of crime was aided, and the means of detection lessen-head. ed. What he meant was, that the mechanical improvements which so much distinguished the country, and which were a great source of its prosperity, so aided the perpetrators of crime, by enabling them to travel a great distance in a few hours, and to use great caution in the selection of time and manner, that the means of detection were very much lessened. All causes, therefore, of the increased comforts of the people of the country became thus sources of crime; not less from the increased temptation which they necessarily created, than from the increased facilities which they afforded sof perpetration and evasion. Another influential cause was, the very sunsatisfactory state of that branch of our police which was chiefly controlled by the inhabitants. By this arrangement each parish was perfectly isolated, so far as prevention of crime was concerned, from every other; there could be, therefore, no general unity of design-no general responsibility. But, this was not all: each parish had its own districts, every one of which might be perfectly independent of the rest as to its police; so that the responsibility was still further subdivided, or rather destroyed. Could there, then, be any unity of design under such a system? Certainly not; nor responsibility, until all the parochial police was concentrated under one responsible and efficient He did not, when he made this declaration, mean to deny that some of the parishes in the metropolis had applied themselves meritoriously and successfully to protect the property and persons of their inhabitants, by establishing an efficient parochial police; but he contended, that until this efficiency was made general, nothing but a local benefit could follow from their efforts. What advantage in a general point of view could be derived from one well-regulated district, surrounded by five or six neighbouring parishes in which no attempts had been made to remedy the present inefficient watch-house system? Would not the necessary effect be, to drive the thieves and robbers from the protected parish into those parishes on its skirts on which the authorities were indifferent about providing efficient security for the property, &c., contained in it? Would not, consequently, the one wellregulated district aggravate the evils of its neighbours? This was actually the case with the parishes of Hackney, St. James's, and Marylebone, in which owing to the voluntary and unpaid exertions of some of the inhabitants, an efficient watch-police establishment was kept up. But though these exertions were eminently successful at present, he need not say, that, being dependent wholly on the disposition of individuals, who had, as he had stated, voluntarily, and without remuneration, undertaken them, there could be no adequate security for their continuance, far less for their extension, but in the appointment of responsible official agents. Besides, he repeated, supposing their continuance could be ensured under the present system, they must prove abortive against the effects of a bad neighbourhood until unity of design was established. he had higher opinions in favour of his present object, than parochial authorities. Those most competent to judge, and most interested in the subject in the city and elsewhere, had expressed their decided and unanimous opinion, that some material improvements were imperatively necessary in our present arrangements for the protection of property. Those also who were practically acquainted with the workings and defects of the present parochial police system, had expressed the same opinion, either directly or by implication, in their evidence before the police committee. Mr. Julian, the clerk to the magistrates of the Kensington district, had furnished on this point very important information. It appeared from the evidence, that that district was dreadfully exposed to the depredations of thieves and housebreakers. That it should be so, he thought Mr. Julian's evidence of the number and character of the-he supposed he must call it-parochial police, showed was not The necessity for that unity was strikingly very surprising. That witness stated that shown by the present police arrangements the wealthy and populous district of Kenof some of the parishes adjoining the well-sington-not less than fifteen miles in regulated ones he had mentioned. In the extent-was dependent on the protection parish of St. Pancras, for example, in of three constables and three headwhich there was a large watch-house establishment kept up, according to returns which he had thought it right to call for, there was not less than eighteen different watch-trusts that is eighteen different, isolated irresponsible police establishments rendering a unity of design among the eighteen local authorities of that large parish an actual impossibility. In that parish, then, there were eighteen watch-trusts; but if they inquired into the arrangements of other parishes, they would find, not too many watch-trusts, but actually no nightwatch at all. This was the case in the parish of Lambeth, in which there was no provision for a night-watch, and in which there was a different species of police altogether, but no watch-trust. Upon this point there was much interesting, and-if he could say so in a case involving so serious a subject as increase of crime much amusing information in the evidence annexed to the report of the police committee. To that evidence he begged leave to direct the attention of the House, particularly of such hon, members as might be disposed to view his intended bill with a jealous eye, bes o For the satisfaction of those hon. memshers, he thought it necessary to state that boroughs, some of whom, after they were a time in office, became not very remarkable for their abstinence from intoxicating liquors, and who, from the nature of their appointment by the steward of the manor, were, to all intents and purposes, beyond the control of the magistrates, and who, from having no fees but those the law allowed them, in the end did no duty at all, except indeed that of making out very long bills. Surely it was not surprising, when the great extent of the Kensington district, and its great wealth were considered, that three drunken beadles should be no preventive of housebreaking and thievery in it. Indeed, as had been said of the Court of Chancery, three angels, under such circumstances, would be a sorry protection [a laugh]. He repeated-it could not be considered surprising that burglaries were frequent in the Kensington district, with such a police. What said another clerk of the magistrates in his evidence? Why, that in the parish of Tottenham alone, in six weeks, not less than nineteen attempts at burglary had been perpetrated, and out of these nineteen attempts but three failed, the remaining sixteen being entirely successful. And this was but one parish out of eight in the district, solog |