there was not one-tenth of the business that was now performed. Since the peace, the whole of the transport department had been transferred to the Navy-office, by which the public saved 20,000l. a-year. The number of commissioners had been diminished, as compared with 1789, whilst their business had been increased. By the order in council, they might have three commissioners in each committee; but Lord Melville directed that there should be only two to each committee. It was impossible to conduct the business with fewer commissioners than they had.

Mr. Hume was of opinion, that the additional labour fell, not on the commissioners, but on those who were under them.

The resolution was agreed to. The sum of 33,9771. was voted to defray the expense of salaries and contingencies in the Victualling office.

The next resolution was for 157,1767. for his Majesty's yards at home.

Sir Edward Knatchbull complained, that many shipwrights and other artificers were discharged from the dock-yard at Chatham, while none were removed from Portsmouth or Plymouth. The consequence of this was, that as the men could procure no employment, many of them, with their families, were thrown on the parish.

Sir George Clerk said, that at the end of the war, it was found that there was not sufficient work for all the men employed in the several dock-yards. To avoid the necessity of discharging them, in consequence, it was offered to continue them at such work as there

might be for them to do, but at a lower rate of wages. The men received this as a boon, and were very glad to continue in the dockyards upon the terms offered them. In the course of last winter and the autumn, they expressed some dissatisfaction at the amount of their wages, and were told they were at liberty to seek employment wherever they could obtain better pay. Some of them did so, and the reason why this happened to have taken place in Kent, more than in Plymouth and in other places, was, because, on the men at Plymouth being told that they were kept in employment at the reduced wages only in order to keep them from the distress of being without work, they said they were content, and continued their places. As to the families of the shipwrights discharged from the dock-yards in Kent having become chargeable to the parish, that was their own fault; there was plenty of work for them to do in the private docks, but they had entered into a combination, and placed themselves under the direction of a committee, who fixed certain prices, which the masters would not give. He could assure the honourable baronet, that if all the shipwrights who were not absolutely wanted in the dock-yards, should be discharged, the distress would be much greater, and more general.

After a few words from Sir E. Knatchbull,

Mr. Huskisson said, he had reason to know, that there was, at this time, a great demand for workmen in the private yards, and that all the men who had left the public docks would have found employment there, but for the mischievous

mischievous spirit of combination which influenced them. Since the repeal of the combination laws, the workmen in this and other trades had committed such excesses, as, if they were continued, would compel the house to resort again to the former laws, the repeal of which, he feared, had prejudiced some very valuable interests, and had, in fact, been injurious to the workmen themselves. He knew that there were many persons now ready to give the workmen employment, and the statements of those persons placed the conduct of the workmen in such light, as made him feel more indignation than he now thought fit to express. If they had, in any instance, become burdensome to the parishes, it must have been through their own misconduct.

Mr. Hume was so far from blaming the government for the course which they had adopted towards the shipwrights, that he thought it extremely humane to keep them at low wages, until the revival of the merchant-trade should have furnished them with full employment. That time had now arrived. He was sorry to add, to what had fallen from the right hon. the president of the board of trade, that the conduct of the workmen, in all parts of the country, since the repeal of the combination laws, which he had laboured so much to procure, had been highly blameable. They had attempted to impose upon their masters, regulations far more arbitrary and degrading than those which they had themselves so much complained of. He hoped the recent successes of the masters who had withstood these attempts, would teach the workmen

that this ungracious and impolitic conduct of their's would drive their best friends, in and out of that house, to, wish for the reenactment of the old laws.

The vote was agreed to, after a few words from Alderman C. Smith.

Sums of 560,000l. for the wages to artificers employed in the yards at home; of 538,3061. for the charge for timber; and for 40,000l. charge for pilotage, bounty for slaves, were then agreed to.

On the motion being put on the last of the above votes,

Mr. Hume asked, why the bounty on slaves was inserted?

Sir George Clerk replied, that it was under the act of parliament which ordered that money to be payable out of the funds which might happen to be in the hands of the treasurer of the navy.

Votes of 52,0221. 13s. 5d. for foreign yards,

73,5721. for victualling yards, 55,510l. 13s. 11d. for medical establishments,

6,2521. 128. 7d. for the Royal Naval College, &c.

106,0271. 7s. 1d. for wages to officers, &c., belonging to vessels in ordinary,

54,7871. 4s. for victuals to officers, &c.; and

40,4806. for hired packets, were then agreed to.

On the last vote, Mr. Hume said, he hoped the chancellor of the exchequer meant to take off the charges which were at present paid on newspapers sent to and from the colonies, and make them, in this respect, similar to newspapers sent to Ireland and Scotland, which paid either none, or a very small charge for postage.

The Chancellor of the Exche

quer

quer said, that the expense was so much greater in the one than in the other, that some part of the charge must, in fairness as well as of necessity, be defrayed by the parties to whom the papers were transmitted.

Mr. Hume took this opportunity, having formerly introduced the subject of the half-pay to naval officers being made a retainer for their future services, to ask, whether naval officers having taken holy orders were subject to the same regulations as officers in the army?

Sir G. Cockburn replied, that the regulation by which officers on half-pay were struck off as soon as they had taken holy orders, always prevailed in the navy; and, by a recent order, the samé regulation had been adopted in the army. This was, however, only to have a prospective ope

! The debate was carried on by Lord Nugent, Sir E. Knatchbull, Mr. Grenfell, Colonel Trench, Mr. Sykes, and Mr. Phillips, when the house divided-for the second reading, 253; against it,

107.

House of Commons, Feb. 22.On the motion for the second reading of the St. Catherine's-dock bill,

Mr. C. Calvert rose to oppose it. The hon. gentleman moved, "That this bill be read a second time this day six months."

Mr. Manning seconded the motion.

Mr. Wallace expressed himself strongly in favour of the bill. The parties who sought for it wanted no exclusive advantages. All they wished for was fair and open competition. They had not brought forward the measure lightly. It had undergone the most mature consideration. It was fit, that in a great commercial country, there should be competition in undertakings of this description. Accommodation, and that of the best kind, should be given to their merchant-vessels, and that would be best obtained through the medium of open competition. Much had been said about the accommodation afforded by the London-dock company, but why should they have a monopoly? The fact was, that those who opposed the bill were afraid of losing the gains which they realized by the enjoyment of a monopoly.

Sir J. Yorke said, he took a very different view of the subject from that which had been taken by the right hon. president of the board of trade. He thought the right hon. gentleman was not

quite correct in thinking that there was not sufficient dock-room already. When he saw the number of bills which were called for, and which were enumerated in the paper printed with their votes, he felt that there was a clashing of interests, which was likely to end in the ruin of different parties. He seriously asked, whether the gentlemen who thus employed their capital were in the right. In his opinion they were not; and therefore he should oppose the bill.

Mr. H. Sumner said, he should

support the bill. He thought that competition was in every commercial concern a very good thing: he had no doubt that if the proposed docks were to be laid aside, the existing companies would raise their prices. this reason, although he was no subscriber to the measure, nor in any other way interested in it, he should be very glad to see it carried.

For

Mr. Grenfell replied. He said, that the only opposition which had been made to the measure had proceeded from those who were interested in the present dock companies. He had no doubt that an overwhelming majority would prove the sense which the house entertained of the justice and expediency of the bill.

Mr. C. B. Monck objected, not to the principle, but to the operation of the bill in the particular place which was selected for the erection of the docks. The parish contained eight or 10,000 persons, who were chiefly employed in the lighters on the river, and they would be deeply injured, if it were carried into effect.

He

objected also to the sacrilegious exhumation of the ashes of the dead, which must be a consequence of it.

Mr. Alderman Thompson said, that a large number of the inhabitants of the parish of Bermondsey had consented to the measure, and almost the whole body of merchants and ship-owners were unanimously in favour of it. He heartily concurred with the bill.

Sir R. Fergusson said, there was not an out-port in the whole country which did not, with good reason, complain of the Londondocks. He saw no possible objection to the proposed bill.

Mr. Ellice said he was instructed from Dublin, the merchants of which port had not at present sufficient accommodation in the London - docks, to support the bill.

The house then divided, when the numbers appeared to be-for the second reading, 118; against it, 30; majority in favour of the second reading, 88.

Mr. Fyshe Palmer rose to move for leave to bring in a bill to empower magistrates at quarter sessions to effect exchanges between counties of insulated parcels of land, for the more convenient administration of justice. To provide a remedy for the inconvenience and perplexity which resulted from having certain parcels of land belonging to particular counties situated at a considerable distance from those counties, was the object of the bill which he called upon the house to give him leave to introduce. The best method of prevailing upon persons to apply a remedy was to prove

the existence of the evil: that he would endeavour to do by stating a few

a few short facts. In the first place, he would beg to remind the house that Holy Island, which lay off the coast of Northumberland, did not, as one would naturally suppose from the situation, belong to that county, but to the county palatine of Durham. Another place, belonging to Durham, called Crake, was situated in the centre of Yorkshire, 50 miles from the courts of the county of which it was called a part. Its inhabitants voted for members of parliament for the county of Durhamn, whilst the assessments for land were made, and men were raised and embodied for Yorkshire. In the same way a part of Derbyshire was to be found in Leicestershire; and a part of Huntingdonshire in Bedfordshire. From the town of Oakingham, a tract of land belonging to Wiltshire ran into Berkshire for about four miles in length. It was, in some places, two miles in breadth, and in others not half a mile; and there was no notorious mark by which the boundaries of the two counties could be defined. In like manner Swallowfield East, and Swallowfield West, both belonging to Wiltshire, were situated in Berkshire. He had the authority of all the magistrates on the Oakingham bench for stating that the situation of the three parcels of land which he had mentioned had for many years produced a great inconvenience. He had seen a bill which had been framed with reference to this very subject, by Lord Chancellor Hyde, afterwards Lord Clarendon, who had resided for some time in the parish of Swallowfield. The bill was drawn up with great accuracy; it enumerated every parish,

tithing, and village within the three parcels of land before mentioned, as well as all the evils which had arisen, or were likely to arise, from their locality; and the remedy which it proposed was, that those parcels of land should be annexed for all purposes whatever to the county of Berks-that all power and jurisdiction over them should be taken from the lordlieutenant and the magistrates of Wiltshire, and vested in those of Berkshire, with full authority to raise all dues and subsidies, all tenths and fifteenths, and all taxes whatever. The bill also contained a saving clause, guarding the right of every man's inheritance. He would not trespass on the time of the house by entering into an inquiry as to whether the divisions of the kingdom were effected under the reign of Alfred, or under that of Offa, or whether the division by tithings, or by counties, was of the greatest antiquity; but he must beg leave to say a few words on the constitution of shires, from which he thought he could make it appear that the establishment of those isolated spots in particular counties, which created so much inconvenience, must have been the effect of some overpowering influence in direct violation of the principle which led to the establishment of county courts, itinerant magistrates, and of the office of high sheriff. He found, from several authorities, that there. were three objects proposed to be attained by the constitution of shires. The first was to suit the ease and convenience of the people, because all justice being at that time immediately in the crown, and administered, only

where