of Commons. But he denied that these were money clauses, or had any connxion with the money matters contained in the bill. All the provisions in the bill regarding money would be precisely the same, whether these clauses were retained or expunged. These clauses might have formed a bill by themselves, although it had never been proposed to alter the existing system in any other respect; they were mere clauses of police and regulation. If, again, it was said that these provisions must not be touched, because, although they were not money clauses themselves, they had been inserted in a money bill, that was, that the Lords had no power to interfere with any thing which the Commons chose to put into a money bill, then they were de prived of a great part of their most important privileges, and the sooner they came to a right understanding on the question the better. He was not at all averse to the rest of the bill, and if any alteration of those clauses would be an infringement of the privileges of the House of Commons, government had only to send up another bill in the same form, omitting these objectionable clauses, and that bill might be passed; or they might do still better, by sending up a bill taking off the duty altogether, and not keeping up the complicated machinery and the extensive establishment necessary for levying the paltry tax of one penny on each news

registered at the stamp-office; but it did not refuse all means of getting at the others, and gave no countenance to that concealment, the violation of which was now represented as an exercise of inquisitorial tyranny. The act of 1798 provided, that if any person should file a bill in any court of equity for the discovery of the name or names of any proprietor, editor, printer, or publisher of a newspaper, or for the discovery of any matter relating to the printing and publishing thereof, in order to enable him or them to carry on any action or actions of damages for slander or libel, it should not be lawful for the defendant or defendants to plead or demur to the bill, but that they should be compelled to make the discovery thereby required. What was the present clause? Why this :-the act of 1798 having laid it down as a rule, that although only two proprietors were required to be registered, means were to be afforded by which parties aggrieved could get at the proprietors, the clause now under consideration provided that a return should from time to time be made of the names of all the proprietors-in short, that there should be registered at the stamp-office a declaration containing the names of all the proprietors. It could not be denied that this was a much less expensive mode of proceeding than by the machinery of the bill of 1798; and were not the charges of tyranny and oppression quite as applicable to that act as to the present measure, which, while it followed in principle the remedy given to the public in that act, effected the object in a more consistent and less expensive manner. To this it was answered, that there

was a great difference between the act of 1798, and the provisions of the present bill. Under the former, a bill in equity must be filed, which was some protection against unnecessary annoyance; and it could be filed only by a party interested, complaining of a wrong and seeking a remedy, and against parties judicially as sailed as having used their property to his injury. Under the present bill, the discovery was to be made to the whole world, when no person was complaining, and no remedy was sought; and it was enforced, not as a means to afford redress, but as a condition of possessing the property innocently. The act of 1798 contained a guard against the use which was to be made of the discovery when obtained, by providing that it should be used only for the purpose of supporting civil rights; but by the clause now objected to, the information to be obtained at the stamp-office might be used in support of criminal prosecutions. The clause, indeed, did not permit the certificate of the names registered to be given in evidence ; but there would be no difficulty, after getting the names of the most wealthy, opulent, and respectable proprietors, to obtain evidence against any of them by calling any one of the parties by whom the list or return was to be made up, and then asking him in a court of justice whether A B, or CD, or any other name included in the list, was not a proprietor of the particular journal against which the criminal proceedings were then under trial.

Lord Melbourne admitted that the clauses were not necessary for any purposes of revenue, but, at the same time, he assured the

House, that any alteration of them would be fatal to the bill: and by this his lordship evidently meant, not merely that this individual bill, when so altered, would be rejected by the Commons to make way for one not exposed to the same objection, but that the whole measure would be withdrawn, if deprived of that which ministers had not thought it necessary that it should contain ; for he entreated the House not to come to a vote under the notion that it would be possible to repair the effects of that vote during the present session. He denied that the registration of two proprietors had been always found sufficient for the security of the public. He had been told that such was not the case, and that solvent defendants had not always been found to answer for the damages given against them. Everybody knew that a part of the stamped press in London indulged in great scurrility and abuse; and he was informed such was the character of the registered proprietors, that when counsel were consulted as to the course to be pursued in reference to their scurrilous slanders, they advised proceedings to be abandoned, inasmuch as no damages would be recovered after verdict was obtained

that the plaintiffs would have to pay their own costs and get nothing by their action. It was because the securities to the public already existing had not been found to be effectual, that this clause had been introduced into the present Bill. True, it was not contained in the original bill; but when proposed in the House of Commons, it had not been resisted by any party there, and had been approved of even by members of

the opposition. It did nothing more than was done in other cases. All bankers were required to be registered at the stamp-office; and why should not the names of newspaper proprietors, as well as those of persons who employed their capital in other transactions and speculations, be registered? It was true that shares in newspapers were the subject of marriage settlements, and that females and minors in different parts of the country were interested in them; but the same class of persons, when interested in speculations of a different character, were required to be registered, and he could not see that it would injure the character of the press, if it were known who were its real conductors. It was the night-like mystery in which these publishers were enveloped, that he wished to see removed, and the shade by which those who exercised such power and authority in the country were surrounded, dispelled. There could be no reason for their concealing themselves. The motion for expunging the clauses was carried by a majority of sixty-one against forty, and the bill returned to the Commons, without any other alteration. The Lower House, on the motion of the chancellor of the exchequer, without a division, laid aside the bill, on the ground that their privileges did not permit them to entertain an amended money bill. On the same day (Aug. 10), notwithstanding what lord Melbourne had held out to the House of Lords, on the 8th, as an inducement to adopt the clauses, the chancellor of the exchequer brought in a bill, which was in every thing a copy of the former, except that the provisions in dis pute were omitted. It was the

bill which ministers had originally proposed, and which the peers had sent down. On the following day it went through all its stages, without any discussion, and immediately passed the Lords, the standing orders being suspended for that purpose.

The speech from the throne had recommended an addition of 5,000 men to the navy. men to the navy. In justification of this increase, it was stated, on moving the vote (4th March), that the admiralty had continual demands for a greater force from all the officers in command, for the purpose of protecting the commerce of the country; from the Pacific, the admiral and commodore had, in August last, obeying the demands of the British merchants resident at Callao, called, for an increase to the force of two ships already on that station; and for months letters of a pressing character had been received from that quarter. Similar calls had been made upon the Admiralty by the consuls at Lima, Mexico, and Valparaiso, by the merchants resident there, and on the whole western coast of Mexico, claiming this aid in protection of their per sons and their property, and declaring an increased naval force to be absolutely necessary for this purpose. Similar applications had been made from the coast of Peru, which was in a perfect state of revolution, where there existed no government able either to enforce its own decrees or to protect the property of British merchants. From the northern ports of the Brazils, which were in a similar condition to Peru, similar demands had been made, and the claims for protection to the trade in that part of the world had been supported by the merchants of Liverpool and

other influential

bodies. That such protection was necessary was shown by the fact, that a British merchant ship had been lately seized, and her crew, save one man, had been murdered. Sir George Cockburn, on the West India station, called for additional force to put down the slave-trade, which was again upon the increase in that part of the world. Applications for an increase of strength had also reached the Admiralty from the Newfoundland station, in order to protect the fisheries from encroachments by the French and other nations; from the admiral on the East India station, to put down the piracies now practising in the Straits of Malacca; from the African station, complaining of the great increase of the slave-trade under the Spanish and Portuguese flags, and from the Lisbon station, calling for the moral support of the fleet in the Tagus, and thus to hasten the desired result of the quadripartite treaty. It was im possible to comply with these demands, in any instance, without withdrawing the British naval force from Spain and Portugal, where their presence was necessary. It was also important to look at the naval strength of other nations. From the best information that had been obtained, it appeared that the French had now afloat twenty-eight ships of war. Russia had carried the increase in respect of her naval strength still further. In 1834 Russia had cruising in the Black Sea five, and in the Baltic eighteen line-ofbattle ships; and last summer she had eighteen line-of-battle ships and six frigates cruising in the

Baltic, besides a large fleet at the review at Cronstadt, consisting, after landing troops, of eleven lineof-battle ships, six frigates and ten smaller, including steam vessels. The utmost naval force this country had in the Baltic was two frigates and one sloop, the crews of all not exceeding 1,000 men. And all the line-of-battle ships this nation had afloat in every part of the world did not exceed ten. The cause of this state of circumstances was not the want of ships, but the want of men for ships now lying in harbour, and which could be sent to sea in a few days. It was for the purpose of preventing the navy being left in such a condition, a condition not consistent with the honour and interests of the nation,-that government proposed an increase of 5,000 men. They might have been justified in demanding more; but they would content themselves with a number which would enable them at any time to send a squadron to sea. The vote was granted without any division, although Mr. Hume, and one or two other members, protested against it as uncalled for. The member for Middlesex endeavoured to make a compensating saving by moving (March 11) a reduction of 5,000 men in the army estimates; but he was supported by only forty-three members against 136: and he was still more unsuccessful in another motion directed against the foot-guards, as being costly troops, maintained for show rather than for use, and enjoying, for the sake of the aristocracy, prerogatives which were degrading to the rest of the army.

FOR

NOR a considerable time unfortunate differences had prevailed in the Mauritius between a part of the inhabitants and the government authorities, and between one portion of the population and another. They were said to have originated in the desire of the white population to evade some requirements of the law for the emancipation of the negroes, and were believed to have been aggravated by what was termed on one side the indiscretion, and on the other the honest determination of the colonial judges. More than one recal of judges had taken place; and the consequence was, that their successors, who did not pursue the same course, and the governors of the island were denounced as being guilty of abusing their powers to prevent the full and fair execution of the emancipation act. Mr. Roebuck, the paid agent of the turbulent colonists of Canada, extended his protection to the discontented inhabitants of the Mauritius, and moved in the House of Commons, (Feb. 15) that a select committee

should be appointed to inquire into the administration of justice in that colony. He stated, that from the time of the cession of the Mauritius to this country in 1814, a party had arisen, hostile to the power and supremacy of England, because of her resolution to put down the slave trade, and ameliorate the condition of the slave population. The mother country had declared slave trading to be a felony, and an order in council was passed, in consequence of a resolution of that house, to the effect that no governor, judge, or registrar of slaves-that, in fact, no person in any way whatever connected with the administration of justice, should hold any species of slave proverty, either directly, in trust, or mortgage. Now, he charged the whole body of those functionaries with holding slave property. He charged sir C. Colville, the late governor, with speculating and creating debts in slave property; he charged chief justice Blackburne, the officers of the Supreme Court, and nearly all the functionaries of the island