EAST RETFORD DISFRANCHISEMENT BILL.

May 19.

The House being in a committee on the Bill for disfranchising East Retford, and transferring the franchise to Birmingham, Mr. Nicholson Calvert moved an amendment to the preamble, that it should be transferred to the hundred of Bassetlaw. Upon which, Lord Sandon, referring to the fate of the Penryn Disfranchisement Bill in the Lords, reminded Mr. Huskisson of his declaration, that if there was only one case of delinquency before the House, he should recommend and support the transfer of the franchise to some great commercial town,' and claimed his vote in favour of the present bill.

Mr. Secretary HUSKISSON said, that his noble friend was not incorrect, as to what had fallen from him on a former occasion; but when he said, that if they adopted the proposition of the honourable member for Hertfordshire they would create a precedent for future occasions, he could not admit the principle, that the franchise should always in future be transferred to a great town whenever any borough might be disfranchised. The House might make a bad selection; and as what his right honourable friend near him had said, related only to a choice between two towns, so his opinion had been, that it would be better to extend the franchise to the neighbourhood of the town which had formerly enjoyed it, rather than to a distant part of the kingdom. Now, as to the present course, it should be recollected, that when the House first took upon itself to punish for corruption, it did not disfranchise any borough, but considered that a corrective was applied by throwing the liberty open to the vicinage. This had been done in the cases of Shoreham, Aylesbury, and other places; and the argument in favour of that course was strengthened, when there were numbers in any place, who had not vitiated their franchise by using it for corrupt purposes. In such cases, Parliament had no right to take away the franchise, and thus punish

innocent persons for guilt incurred by others. The proposition, however, of the honourable member for Hertfordshire, was not to infuse fresh blood into the borough, by letting in the freeholders of the vicinage, but to deal with East Retford as they had done with Grampound; and then, by giving the franchise to the neighbourhood, to create a new representation. Under these circumstances, he felt great difficulty, and wished to postpone the decision, until the fate of the other bill which had been sent up to the Lords could be known.

The committee divided: For the amendment, 146. Against it, 128. Upon this occasion, Mr. Huskisson voted with the minority.

EAST RETFORD DISFRANCHISEMENT BILLMR. HUSKISSON'S STATEMENT, RESPECTING HIS REMOVAL FROM OFFICE.

June 2.

Mr. Tennyson having moved the order of the day, for going into a committee on this bill,

Mr. HUSKISSON rose and said:-Sir, the circumstances under which I offer myself to your notice will, I trust, bespeak for me-that, of which I shall stand so much in need-the patient indulgence of this House, without my making any elaborate appeal to their good feelings.

Notwithstanding the example of modern times, more especially the precedents of the last session,-notwithstanding the appeal just made to me by the honourable member who has moved the order of the day,—I, for one, am not prepared to subscribe to the doctrine, that a minister of the Crown, on quitting his Majesty's service, is necessarily called upon to give an account, either to Parliament or to

he country, of the grounds on which he has ceased to hold office. For all that he may have done, for any thing which the may have omitted to do, in his official capacity, he is responsible: and I trust that I am not less prepared than any of my predecessors to answer any questions, or to render a full and explicit account, in these respects.

But while I do not acknowledge the abstract obligation of explaining why I am no longer in office, I am willing to admit to the honourable member for Blechingly, that there are peculiar circumstances in the present instance which, in justice to the country, and in justice to myself as a public character, render such explanation necessary and expedient.

When my right honourable friend* last year retired from the post which he occupied, he found it necessary to explain the motives which had led him, voluntarily though reluctantly, to resign a situation in which he had done such worthy service to the country. I have to state, not the motives which influenced me in relinquishing office, but the circumstances which have caused my removal from it. Of the motives for that removal I can explain nothing. They belong to others; and all which I will venture to say respecting them is, that I have no doubt they were suggested by what appeared a sense of public duty. But were I to be silent on the events in question,-were I to allow it to remain uncontradicted that I had lightly, inconsiderately, and upon what I must say I cannot but regard as, in itself, a comparatively trivial occasion, sent in my resignation, I should justly, I think, in public opinion, be held responsible for an improper sense of the high trust confided to me, and for a disregard of the duty which I owe to my sovereign; for interrupting at a most important period of the session the course of public business, both in and out of Parliament; for having thrown the Government and the country into a state of

Mr. Secretary Peel.

temporary embarrassment, suspending not only the ordinary march of affairs, but at a most difficult and critical conjuncture, involving in the same suspense our relations with our allies, and the duties which we had to perform, as well towards them, as for the maintenance of harmony and good understanding amongst the powers of Europe. Under such circumstances, to have resigned, as it is said I have resigned, or to be removed, as I contend, I have been removed, without some sufficient and adequate cause, is that mystery which it is proper I should endeavour to explain.

The House will recollect that we have had before us, in this session, two bills for disfranchising boroughs accused of corruption; and that, at an early period of the session, these bills were both upon our table, at the same time. One of the bills affected the elective franchise of Penryn, and it was proposed to transfer that franchise to Manchester. The other, as proposed by the honourable member for Blechingly, had for its object the transference of the elective franchise from East Retford to Birmingham. On the 21st of March, a long and able discussion took place upon the latter proposal. In the course of that debate, my right honourable friend stated in substance, that, as there were two bills before the House, he should propose, in the case of one (that of Penryn), to make the transfer to Manchester; -in the other, to open the borough to the hundred. My right honourable friend argued on the expediency of pursuing this course, much at length and with his usual ability. He was followed by several gentlemen on the opposite side of the House, who took a different view from him, and urged that in both cases the elective franchise should be transferred from the corrupt boroughs to great commercial towns. I came down to the House on that evening without any intention of taking part in the discussion. No other person, however, but my right honourable friend having

addressed the House from the bench on which he now sits, I rose very late in the debate, and, it would appear that, in the course of the observations which fell from me, I made use of the following expressions: "Did the present case (East Retford) stand alone, I certainly should recommend and support the measure of transferring the franchise to some great commercial town." I do assure the House and my right honourable friend, that, in making this declaration, I did not, at the time, consider myself as outstepping the fair spirit of the line of argument, which he himself had adopted. I wish to state this fairly, because, in the situation in which I stand it is my duty to show that I did not do what would in me have been highly improper, namely, that I did not go further than what I distinctly understood to be the view of my right honourable friend; and I have reason to know that there were many other members of this House who entertained the same opinion of what had fallen from my right honourable friend as myself. After the explanation which I heard from him in a subsequent debate, I am ready to admit, in equal sincerity, that this was by no means a necessary inference, and that I was committing myself beyond the point to which my right honourable friend had committed himself.

The Penryn bill, transferring the franchise to Manchester, passed this House on the 1st of April, and no further proceeding was had on the East Retford bill till the 19th of May. I understand, I do not know how correctly, the cause of this delay to have been, that my right honourable friend himself suggested to the honourable member who had charge of this bill, to make it what he called a "waiting bill," depending upon the fate of the other in the House of Lords.

On the 19th of May, it was proposed to take a further proceeding in the case of East Retford, and it was then