Mr. Aglionby supported the Bill. He might be disposed in the Committee to vote against the venue being changed to the city of Dublin. Mr. Sinclair supported the Bill. He was a friend to Ireland, and as much disposed as any man to maintain her liberties. He heard nothing which could induce him to vote against the Bill. Secretary to-night proved that the system be given to the prosecutor in Ireland, subof intimidation still prevailed, and, there-ject to the approbation of the Court of fore, he was at a loss to conceive upon what King's Bench. grounds, or upon what principle, the hon. and learned Member objected to a Bill, which would extend, as far as possible, to the people of Ireland, the benefit of the Trial by Jury, instead of subjecting them to the more summary and severe process of a Court-martial. The hon. and learned Member had before referred to the proposition made during the American war, to bring culprits to trial from America to England; but what parallel was there between the two cases? The operation of this Bill was confined to the jurisdiction of the courts in Ireland. The hon. and learned Gentleman had complained of the hardship of trying a man before strangers; but were the inhabitants of Dublin strangers? Were they foreigners? Were they not Irishmen, and had they not the sympathies of Irishmen? This must be so, and he was sure the hon. and learned Member did his constituents injustice. He would only remind the hon. and learned member for Dublin, before he sat down, that many Irish Members who opposed the Suppression of Disturbances Bill, supported this Bill. The hon. and learned member for Monaghan, for instance, highly approved of it, and considered that it might have an excellent effect, and render it altogether unnecessary to call into operation the powers of the Coercive Bill; for even when a district was disturbed, it did not necessarily follow that Courts-martial shall be established. Mr. Cutlar Fergusson said, he knew of no case in which the venue was changed except at the desire of the prisoner. There was no instance of its being changed on the part of the Crown. He regretted that the Court-martial clause had passed at all. Such a Bill as this might have rendered it quite unnecessary. He was prepared to oppose the changing of the venue to the city of Dublin, on account of the manner in which Juries were appointed. The Solicitor General said, he had no doubt that upon application the venue would be changed at the desire of the prosecutor. Sir James Scarlett said, there was a statute which enabled the prosecutor to have a trial in the next county. Mr. Jervis said, he did not mean to oppose the Bill. He believed there was no instance of the venue being changed in cases of felony at the suggestion of the prosecutor. At the same time, he did not mean to say, that a power to do that should not Mr. Maurice O'Connell said, that for three hundred years this parrot cry of friendship to slaves was repeated in the West Indies, as it was now with respect to Ireland. Such professions of friendship were nothing but slang and cant. The friendship of England to Ireland had invariably shown itself in coercion. Not a single case of intimidation had been produced to justify this Bill, except one, founded upon anonymous information. He admitted that as fair and impartial a Jury might be had in Dublin as in any part of the empire if the Juries were struck in a different manner. Sir Robert Inglis thought it quite improper in the member for Tralee to charge his hon. friend (Mr. Sinclair) with the use of cant and slang. He protested against the use of such language in that House. Mr. Maurice O'Connell spoke generally of professions, which he must consider, looking into the result as hypocritical; and he meant nothing personally offensive to the member for Caithness. Mr. Sinclair expressed himself satisfied with the explanation. Mr. O'Dwyer opposed the Bill, and expressed his astonishment at a proposition to subject all Ireland to Dublin Juries. The Jury system there was full of vices. An instance in point was this: an Alderman was using insulting language to the King, and, on being remonstrated with, replied, " you may prosecute me if you like, but if it was even for treason, I am sure of getting a Jury to acquit me." Indeed, when it happened that the Attorney General had a quarrel with the Corporation he could get no conviction whatever. Mr. Hill thought the last speaker had given an undeniable reason for passing the Bill, for if it were a law, and an Alderman should speak treason, or the Attorney General have a quarrel with the Corporation, the venue might be changed, and the Alderman might find the experiment hazardous, and the Corporation might find it dangerous to obstruct the course of the law. His object, however, in rising, was to express the feelings he entertained at hearing the hon. and learned member for Dublin, and those who supported him, constantly throwing out irritating expressions against English Members; who, whatever might be said of their justice, certainly deserved great credit for their patience. He would put the claims of English Members as low as they could be put, by the ingenuity-he did not say ingenuousness of the hon. and learned member for Dublin, he would suppose that if anything were to be gained, that if one single sixpence were to be put into the pockets of English Members by oppressing Ireland, they would so act, But if they could have no such motive, what was meant by the charge against them? The hon. and learned member for Tralee had compared them to negro slaveholders; but he would beg the House to recollect that there was this material difference between the relation of England to Ireland, and of masters to their slaves. Negroes were the property of their masters, and worked for their benefit; the masters gained their livelihood from the sweat of the negroes' brow; but it would puzzle hon. Members from Ireland to show how English Members profited by the labour of the people of Ireland. He would claim nothing for English generosity, which, in the abstract, the hon. and learned member for Dublin praised every night, but which he never allowed in any particular instance; but he would simply put the question as one of interest-and ask the hon. and learned Member, what benefit English Members could derive from the oppression of Ireland, any more than from the oppression of Scotland, of Wales, or Cornwall? What motive did he imagine could actuate the English Members? Did they do evil for the sake of evil? Were they demons? The hon. and learned Member was continually alluding to times past, and he went with him in those allusions. He knew that Ireland had been oppressed, that even his eloquence was not fervid enough to describe the oppression Ireland had met with-not, however, from England, or the English people -but from the English Government; but had not that Government oppressed England also? [Mr. Connell: No!] Had the hon. and learned Member then expended all his faculties upon Irish history, and not read a page of English history? Were the Members of a Reformed Parliament, to say, that in times past, the English people had not been oppressed. Had the Government of the people of England. always been just, and had they not suffered from the same causes as the people of Ireland? Had the people of England been duly represented in Parliament? Had they had a proper control over their own revenue and expenditure? Had not the people of England been subject to the domination of the faction which laid an equal hand of tyranny upon both countries? The hon. and learned Gentleman objected to this Bill as imposing hardships upon Ireland which did not exist in England; but the principle of the Bill had long been received and acted upon in England. The Act which had introduced it, gave power to any prosecutor on his own mere Motion, without asking the leave of any court whatever to prosecute a criminal in any adjoining county to the local jurisdiction in which the offence was committed; and it was only the year before last, that a murder committed in the county of the city of Coventry was prosecuted in the county of Warwick. The murderer was convicted, and taken back to the county of the city of Coventry to be executed. An important measure like this, however, ought not to be defended on mere law precedents; but when the hon. and learned Member spoke of this as an innovation, he certainly forgot his learning. If the hon. Member attacked the Bill upon principle, he would meet him upon principle, and would say boldly, that the principle of the Bill was so good, that he, for one, supposing it ever to be wanted, should, with proper checks, be just as ready to extend it to England as to Ireland. Nay, he thought it would tend to the advancement of justice, if a Bill of this kind was introduced into England. He was willing indeed, to concede, that, upon the evidence which the right hon. Gentleman had brought before the House, he could not conscientiously vote for the Bill. But he believed it to be good in principle, and should be ready to vote for it if the right hon. Gentleman had not produced any evidence whatever. Juries appeared originally to have been not only Judges but witnesses, and were, therefore, obtained from the very place where the offence was committed. gained in knowledge by dwelling in the vicinage, they lost however, in impartiality; and, therefore, a very ancient change was, to bring the Juries from the hundred at large, and not from the immediate vicinity of the place where the offence was committed. A subsequent change was, to bring What they The Committee divided on the Amendment.-Ayes 19; Noes 84: Majority 65. Bill went through Committee. The House resumed. HOUSE OF LORDS, Friday, April 19, 1833. MINUTES.] Petitions presented. By the Duke of RICHMOND, by the Marquess of LANSDOWN, and by the Marquess of BUTE, and the Earls RADNOR WINCHILSEA, and Lords POLTIMORE and BARHAM, from several Places,for the Abolition of Slavery.-By the Earl of WINCHILSEA, from Bainbridge, for the Abolition of the Punishment of Death in certain cases; and from Canterbury, for the Better Observance of the Sabbath.-By Lord ROLLE, by the Bishop of LONDON, by the Earl of RODEN, and by the Marquess of LANSDOWN, from several Places,—to the same effect. By the Earl of RODEN, from Beaulieu, against the Irish Church Bill; and from Hamilton, against the existing System of Church Patronage in Scotland. By Lord WYNFORD, from Peckham, for giving Freeholders the power of appointing Auditors of Poor and other Parochial Rates. the Jury from any part of the county; of the Executive Government in Ireland to which was the state of the law now. Did the mere change of the venue to the adthe hon. and learned Gentleman mean to joining county, and that to permit its say, that generally speaking, Juries drawn removal, as was proposed in the Bill, to the from a county knew anything of the wit- county of the city of Dublin. For that nesses or character of the parties accused? purpose he proposed to leave out the words Such things occasionally happened, but" or to the county of the city of Dublin, they were by no means favourable to an or to the county of Dublin." impartial decision. Generally speaking, county Juries knew as little of the parties they tried, as if they lived a hundred miles off. What did it matter, then, whether a man were tried in his own county, or in a county at a considerable distance? When a Jury was ignorant of the criminal and the witnesses, it mattered not whether the trial took place in their own county or 200 miles off. The only difference was, that the prisoner would have the public to pay the expense of his witnesses when he was taken out of the county. That was an advantage all accused persons, he trusted, would shortly have, under proper checks, both in England and Ireland; for there was often great failure of justice from the incompetency of accused persons to bring from a distance witnesses who could prove their innocence. That advantage was given by this Bill, and therefore it ought to be received as a boon, instead of being made the subject of another charge against the English Parliament. With respect to Dublin Juries, as it had been proved, that the Sheriffs of Dublin were partisans, he should refuse his assent to that part of the Bill which went to place in their hands the power of appointing the Juries who were to try parties under this Bill. He saw no reason why a clause should not be put into the Bill, taking from the Sheriff of Dublin the power of choosing Juries, at least for the purposes of the Act. Surely, the officers of the Court of King's Bench might be intrusted with the power of selecting Juries. [Mr. O'Connell: The abuse was in making up the panel.] Well, they might make up the panel also; and at any rate Dublin could not be so deficient in honest men, as that one man could not be found in whom this power might be placed, even to the satisfaction of the hon. and learned member for Dublin himself. He should certainly support the Bill, but not the particular clause of it to which he had just referred. Amendment withdrawn, and the House went into Committee. Several clauses were agreed to. Mr. Fitzgerald moved an Amendment, the object of which was to limit the power CRIMINAL LAW.] Lord Lyndhurst rose to put a question to the noble Viscount on a subject connected with the administration of the Criminal Laws. By the Act of Parliament passed in the course of last Session, all persons convicted of cattle or sheep stealing, or stealing in a dwellinghouse to the amount of 51. should be sentenced to transportation for life. Now, he was extremely desirous of knowing whether the sentences under that Act had been in all cases carried into effect, or commuted for minor punishments. One reason for his wishing to ascertain this was the fact of his having been lately engaged in the trial of several cases of the kind he referred to, and it had constantly appeared to him that the sentence of transportation for life was in many of those cases extremely harsh, and much beyond the nature of the offence. He could state a variety of instances in which that sentence would appear monstrous. He recollected one in which a poor cottager in a mountainous district of the country was indicted for stealing a lamb. He was the owner of two or three sheep, and one of the mothers happened to drop a lamb which died. The cottager finding a few days after a lamb, which had strayed from his neighbour's flock into a field belonging to him, seized Viscount Melbourne, in answer to the noble and learned Lord's question, could not give a precise answer; but he understood that the sentences had not in every case been carried into effect. The circum stances of the several cases were, he be upon it and appropriated it as his own, I cases of house-breaking, he could notice the treating it in every respect as the one he same anomaly as he had pointed out in had lost. The man was tried and found those of sheep-stealing. When a thief guilty of the offence, and he (Lord Lynd- entered an empty house, and, using it as a hurst), who sat as judge, was obliged in means of communication with another pursuance of the Act to pass the extreme house, stole therefrom property to an imsentence upon him. Under the circum- mense amount, that offence appeared to stances of that case, he certainly thought him most flagitious, and one which called the sentence much more severe than justice for the extreme penalty of the law. But required; but he had no power to mitigate in the case of a poor wretch driven by the sentence. It would be far better, he hunger, lifting a latch for the purpose of thought, if some other description of pun- stealing a loaf of bread, and then running ishment for instance, a slight imprison- away, (a case of continual occurrence) it ment-were allowed to be substituted in seemed harsh and absurd to inflict an equal cases of mitigated atrocity. He had felt it degree of punishment. But yet for every his duty to communicate the circumstances offence of house-breaking the Judge was of the case he had stated to the Government compelled to pass a sentence of transporta when they occurred. Surely the atrocity tion for life. He was, for these reasons, of the offence was very different in the desirous of knowing from the noble Viscase of a person who thus carried away one count whether under the new law the lamb, and in that of another who stole a sentences for the offences he had mentioned whole flock of sheep. There was, indeed, had in every instance been carried into no parallel between the two offences, and effect. yet they were both to be visited with a punishment of equal severity. He could only say, that if the extreme punishment were inflicted in all cases, then a new and distinct classification of crimes, so as to include every variety of case, would become indispensably necessary to the due adminis-lieved, always taken into consideration, and tration of justice. A noble Earl, whom he did not then see in his place, had said, during a previous discussion on this subject, that no difference in the power to mitigate the sentence had been made by the Act in question. This, though correct in expres-pared to say what punishment was inflicted. sion, was not correct in substance. Under the old system the Judge had the power of stating in the margin of the calendar the punishment to which the prisoner was to be subjected. This power was vested in the Judge practically, but such was not the case under the present system, The sentence which the Judge was compelled to pass was transportation for life, nor had he the least power to mitigate it. Another reason which had induced him to apply for information on the subject was this that he had ground to believe some further alteration was intended to be introduced into the criminal laws by the other House of Parliament. He wished, then, while those alterations were in progress. that his Majesty's Ministers would turn their attention to this point-namely, the affixing of one precise penalty to every case of crime, and that penalty to be enforced imperatively. To effect this object it would be necessary to make some extensive alterations in the definition of crimes. In the the punishment which was considered most apportioned to the offence was substituted in its stead. With respect to the particular case of sheep-stealing alluded to by the noble and learned Lord, he was not pre He neither recollected the case nor the communication which the noble and learned Lord said he had made to the Government, but in all probability a mitigation of the punishment had taken place. He had supported the Bill for the mitigation of criminal punishments upon the general principle of rendering them more certain, though less severe. The current of public feeling ran strongly against the old laws, and there was in consequence a great repugnance in Jurors to convict. An alteration in the law, then, became necessary, and it was thought the best alternative to limit the punishment for certain offences to transportation for life, instead of inflicting the penalty of death. It was perfectly clear that by the application of a general rule to those offences a great deal of inconvenience might be avoided; but it was not in the nature of human affairs that any general enactment should be free from some inconvenience. Certainly, if there could be a more complete and comprehensive classification and a more accurate definition | in the punishment of crime, and he believed of crime, it would be a great advantage that he acted in consonance with the feelto the administration of justice. The ings of the majority of the people in so Government would always be happy to doing. He could not, therefore, help avail itself of any communication from the expressing his surprise at hearing the noble noble and learned Lord which would assist and learned Lord assert that hereafter, the attainment of those objects in the when he should have to charge a Jury in smallest degree. The present was, he cases under the Act, he should make a conceived, the proper period for doing so, statement to them which would have the when a bill on the subject was about to be effect of exciting their feelings and infludiscussed in the other House of Parliament. encing their judgment before the Jury had Lord Wynford said, that the principle come to a dispassionate alluded to by the noble Viscount who had just sat down-the rendering punishments more certain, by diminishing their severity was precisely the principle on which he had made the proposition to the House. He admitted that a better classification of crimes might be effected. Lord Lyndhurst assured the noble Viscount (Lord Melbourne) that whenever he should happen to sit as Judge before a Jury who had never acted under the new law, he should consider himself bound in passing sentence to state to them the law of the case; and to point out to their notice the fact that he was not allowed to mitigate the sentence. A great practical alteration had, it could not be denied, been effected with respect to the power of the Judge. Until the Act in question passed, the Judge might mitigate the sentence as he thought proper, by merely stating the punishment on the margin of the calendar, and this without being obliged to assign any reason for the mitigation. The case was not so now; that part of the Judge's power was taken away; and if on any occasion he wished to effect a mitigation of the punishment, a special application was necessary. But it was not always convenient to make these special applications from want of time. During the last Assizes he himself had tried 400 or 500 cases, and how could it be supposed that he should have time to make special applications? In order to obtain the information he wanted he should move for " a return of the number of convictions for horse, cattle, and sheep-stealing, and for stealing to the amount of 5l. in a dwelling-house, stating in how many of such convictions the punishment of transportation for life had been inflicted, and in how many that sentence had been commuted for different punishments, from the 1st of July, 1832, to the present time." Lord Dacre said, that his object in originating the measure, which had been amended on the Motion of the noble Baron, was to substitute certainty for uncertainty Lord Lyndhurst declared that he had made no such statement as was attributed to him by the noble Lord. He distinctly said, that after the verdict should be passed, he would, in the presence of the Jury, if they for the first time had sat on a case included within the scope of the Act, state that in passing the sentence he was guilty of no harshness, but was compelled to pass it by the provisions of the Act. Lord Dacre said, that if he were wrong, he would apologize; but he certainly so understood the noble and learned Lord. Lord Lyndhurst again assured the noble Lord that he was mistaken. Lord Dacre again began to address the House, but was again interrupted by an explanation from Lord Lyndhurst, amidst loud cries of "Order," when The Marquis of Lansdown rose to order. His noble friend had been thrice interrupt.. ed by the noble and learned Lord, and he submitted that such conduct was not ordinary. The Earl of Wicklow believed that the ordinary course was, when a noble Lord disclaimed the use of expressions which were attributed to him, to consider them as not having been spoken by him. He was very much surprised at the noble Baron's attempt to persevere on the present occasion. Lord Dacre observed, that he never intended to repeat the statement which the noble and learned Lord had disclaimed; he was merely about to say, when he was interrupted, that such was the impression on his mind from what had fallen from the noble and learned Lord. Lord Lyndhurst assured the House that he never could by any possibility have so expressed himself, because in so doing he should be advocating a violation of the duty of a Judge. Motion agreed to. |