Where had been an increase in all the de- | the right hon. Baronet at the head of Her partments of it. It had been found that a Majesty's Government was about to subrevenue of 22,000,000l. comprised only ject the country. He (Mr. Newdegate) 22 articles. The hon. Gentleman had a thought that as the Custom-houses must great fear of direct taxation: he thought it be retained, the argument that because one of the great merits of the right hon. small duties were levied at some expense Baronet's policy that it was bringing them they were not worth collecting, tended to a more direct taxation of capital and directly in absurdum. property. Under a better system they might do away with the Excise department entirely; the collection of the duties on malt and spirits might be turned over to the Custom-house, the licenses might be given to the Board of Stamps, and then there would be left no need of the Excise at all, which at present cost 900,000l. a year. The right hon. Baronet had been successful upon all the principles he had laid down; he hoped he would proceed and depend upon direct taxation as much as possible.

SIR R. PEEL intended to-morrow to move for a great number of Returns, to which he hoped the attention of the House would be directed. They would refer to the effect of taking off the duties on wool, flax, linen, and shipping; in many points it would be of great importance the House should be acquainted with them before proceeding on the subject the hon. Member behind him (Mr. T. Baring) and the noble Lord had referred to. He should move for these Returns; and if any hon. Gentleman thought they were incomplete, though unintentionally so, and that any supplemental information was required, he should be perfectly ready to give any other returns that might be thought calculated to afford information on the subject. Reductions last year were made upon the glass duties and the duties on auctions. One of the grounds on which he invited the House to consent to that reduction was, that it would enable them to make a reduction in the Excise establishment; the saving in the salaries of officers in the Excise alone, mainly owing to the auction duty having been repealed, and the reduction of the duty on glass, was 52,6367. ; thus, the public had not only the advantage of the improvement in the manufacture of glass, arising from the removal of the Excise restrictions, but from the saving in the expense of the Excise establishment also.

MR. NEWDEGATE, with reference to the observations of the hon. Member for Montrose, did not consider a saving of 500,000l. per annum, which he (Mr. Hume) considered such a trifle, an equivalent for the change in commercial policy to which

MR. ALDERMAN COPELAND observed that if he could have obtained as much labour as he required, he could have carried on an immense trade. The public had not benefited by the right hon. Baronet's alteration of the duties on glass so much as they would have done, if there had not been a scarcity of labour.

MR. HUDSON said, that although there had been an increase on the article of glass, and that such increase would most probably continue, the question was, whether any protection was to be continued to manufactures, when it had been totally withdrawn from agriculture? The right hon. Baronet had not announced his intention to abolish protection on manufactures at the end of three years; but the country would expect that if profection were removed from agriculture, it would also be taken off manufactures. The country, he repeated, would look for justice in this respect; and if even-handed justice was to be dealt out, protection ought to be taken from manufactures as well as agriculture. Whether the present tax could be considered a protection to manufactures or not, the country would think it a tax of 10 per cent., and would demand its removal. He hoped the right hon. Baronet would well consider whether he could not confirm the entire principle, and say, "Protection to all classes shall cease at the expiration of three years." Protection could not, with any degree of consistency, be withdrawn from agriculture while the taxes on tea, sugar, and malt were retained. The principle, in his opinion, ought to be applied to all classes or to none.

DR. BOWRING was rejoiced to hear a Gentleman connected with an establishment known to the ends of the earth express opinions so favourable to free trade, and declare his desire to have what might so justly be called "the burdens" of protection removed from the manufacturing classes.

MR. BORTHWICK believed that the principles of the question had been placed on a clear and intelligible basis by the noble Lord the Member for London; and

House adjourned at a quarter to One, perty was situated-the county of Roscomo'clock.

the prayer of the petition, which was as

lords the relief of any justice in their case. That
for the same ends, and simultaneously, a yell of follows:-
agitation and sedition is propagated to screen
these aggressions and encroachments upon pro-
perty, and to produce general confusion through-
out the country. The petitioner therefore feels
himself compelled to place an undeniable cata-
logue of crime and villany, of which he has been
the victim, on this particular estate, which will be
found to be an answer to whatever exaggerated
or untrue statements either dupes or knaves may
deal in or advance to conceal or disguise the truth

from Parliament."

"That your petitioner prays your Lordships to provide that no occupation of any description of land in a country so exclusively agricultural as Ireland is, may be encouraged or permitted by law, without certain and immediate securities to control and enforce contracts; that laxity may not, as at present, necessarily lead to fraud, chithat means may be devised by the wisdom of your canery, perjury, demoralization, and disturbance ; Lordships to have agreements promptly enforced, of which no man could justly complain; that industry and thrift may be encouraged, and overholding by illegal combination rendered a punish

After further stating the evils to which he was subjected from the tenants who continued on his land against his will, the peti-able offence, as a forcible possession is now pretioner proceeded to say :—

sumed to be. That, as this statement is not overcharged, but very generally a true picture of the state of the whole of the same district, your petitioner prays your Lordships to pass a law whereby persons in the occupation of land not their own may be prevented in limine from subdividing the land of other persons against the will and wish of the proprietors, and against the faith of their own contracts, instead of driving proprietors to a re

"That your petitioner begs to represent to your Lordships that the same persons, or their families, are mostly, with little exception, occupiers against the will and wish of your petitioner of the same land; that a confederacy of a still more lawless and brutal kind has been just recently formed among them, evinced by an open declaration of a determination to pay no further rent to your peti-medy by ejectment after the injury is done, which tioner at all, of which they now owe mostly two years, besides arrears; that the present disease in the potato crop is the pretext in some respect for this conduct; but is no reason whatever, in point of fact, as your petitioner's rents have been paid in other places of the same county; and that the occupiers who hold from your petitioner direct, ought not to be justified by the chicanery which the law permits from paying him, because there may be poverty and distress among the squatters and their families, who have notoriously, against law, reason, and the faith of contracts, been permitted to subdivide and appropriate petitioner's lands among themselves to petitioner's extreme injury. That your Lordships may have no doubt of the cruel hardships and privations which many landlords in that country are suffering under, while exposed to continual obloquy in this; and in proof that much of the stated distress in Ireland is simulated, your petitioner has but to refer to the fact that a tax has been, under the influence

of undue excitement for six years past levied on the tenantry and people of that country in the Romish chapels, called the O'Connell tribute, amounting, according to the official published account, to upwards of 127,8697., and for which the usual annual proclamation has been made on an early Sunday to repeat. That it is pretended this tax is a voluntary contribution; but, whether it be so or not, it is certain the tenantry could not contribute to it if the law was in the ascendant

until they had honestly acquitted themselves of their just obligations."

He (Lord Brougham) had often heard it observed that the Irish were the most charitable people in the world, nor would he quarrel with them for giving dole to any mendicant, great or little-poor creatures! but if they chose to spend so large a sum as 127,8697. in six years on what was called the "O'Connell Tribute," they certainly ought not to come to England and ask for relief to the amount of 500,0001. The noble and learned Lord concluded by

Irish tenants in many places now think, when used, ought to be resented by assassination. That measures may be taken to abridge and diminish the unblushing practice of perjury, now notoriously so common in the courts of quarter sessions in Ireland, by the appointing an officer to write down evidence as it is delivered, to serve towards the ends of conviction for so odious a crime, when necessary. That your Lordships will also be pleased to enact a law whereby the persons for whose interest and benefit, or for the interest and benefit of those who shall occupy land or premises which the owner or tenant is compelled by threats or terror to surrender, shall be held responsible themselves, as if parties taking forcible possession thereof."

Petition laid on the Table.

PROTECTION OF LIFE (IRELAND) BILL. The EARL of SHAFTESBURY brought up the Report on this Bill.

The LORD CHANCELLOR moved an Amendment on the First Clause, which gives a discretionary power to the Lord Lieutenant to proclaim a district, judging of the state of crime generally from the official information before him.

The MARQUESS of CLANRICARDE suggested that the sending of threatening notices should be included in the list of crimes which would justify the proclaiming of a district.

The LORD CHANCELLOR thought it would be dangerous to introduce any such clause as that recommended relative to threatening notices. It would be, in his opinion, giving encouragement to crime, for any individual might sit down and write a hundred notices of the kind addressed to himself.

Amendment agreed to.