DROGHEDA. James McCann. DUBLIN. James Hans Hamilton, Thomas Edward Taylor. DUBLIN (CITY). Edward Grogan, DUBLIN (UNIVERSITY). George Alexander Hamilton, DUNDALK. George Bowyer. DUNGANNON. Hon. William Stuart Knox. DUNGARVAN. Francis Maguire. ENNIS. Loftus Henry Bland. KINSALE. John Isaac Heard. LEITRIM. NEWRY. William Kirk. PORTARLINGTON. Lionel Dawson Damer. QUEEN'S COUNTY. Sir Charles Henry Coote, bt., Michael Dunne. ROSCOMMON. Fitzstephen French, Oliver Dowell Grace. ROSS (NEW). Charles Tottenham. SLIGO. Sir Robert Gore Booth, bt., Edward Joshua Cooper. SLIGO (BOROUGH). William Richard Ormsby Rt. hon. John Arthur Wynne Gore, John Brady. LIMERICK. Stephen Edward De Vere, Rt. hon. William Monsell. LIMERICK (CITY). James Spaight, Francis William Russell. LISBURN. Jonathan Joseph Richard son. LONDONDERRY. Samuel M'Curdy Greer, LONDONDERRY (CITY). Sir Robert Alexander Ferguson, bt. LONGFORD. Henry White, TIPPERARY. O'Donoghoe, Daniel (The O'Donoghoe), Lawrence Waldron. TRALEE. Daniel O'Connell. TYRONE. Rt. hon. Henry Thomas Lowry Corry, Rt. hon. (Claud Hamilton) Lord C. Hamilton. WATERFORD. Nicholas Mahon Power, WATERFORD (CITY). John Aloysius Blake, WESTMEATH. WEXFORD.. Patrick McMahon, John Hatchell. WEXFORD (BOROUGII). John Thomas Devereux. WICKLOW. Hon. Granville Leveson Proby, William Wentworth Fitzwilliam Hume. YOUGHAL. Isaac Butt. PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES, IN THE THIRD SESSION OF THE SEVENTEENTH PARLIAMENT OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, 1857, AND FROM THENCE APPOINTED то MEET 30 APRIL, THE TWENTY-SECOND HER MAJESTY QUEEN VICTORIA. SECOND VOLUME OF THE SESSION. THE IONIAN ISLANDS. EARL GREY: My Lords, a Motion stands in my name on the paper for Monday next, for certain papers respecting proposed alterations in the constitution of the Ionian Islands, and I have to inform your Lordships that in consequence of a letter which I have received from the noble Earl at the head of the Government I do not intend to make that Motion. The noble Earl has stated to me so strongly that public inconvenience will result not merely from the production of these papers, but from any public discussion of the question, that, although my own judgment still remains unchanged, and although I still believe that a discussion of the principle and policy on which those proposed alterations were based would be attended with public advantage, still, in the face of the strong contrary opinion expressed by the noble Earl opposite, and supported by the opinion of the present and late High Commis sioners of the Ionian Islands, I am not prepared to take upon myself the responsibility of persevering with my Motion. THE EARL OF DERBY: I must exVOL. CLIII. [THIRD SERIES]. press my sincere acknowledgments to the noble Earl for the very frank manner in which he has acquiesced in the suggestion I took the liberty of making to him; and I am the more indebted to him, because he has taken this course in opposition to his own judgment. I hope it is unnecessary for me to assure your Lordships that in offering that suggestion I was actuated by nothing but a sense of what was really for the interest of the public service. Since the noble Earl first placed his notice on the paper, I have been examining carefully the voluminous documents connected with the recent history of the Ionian Islands, and while I felt that this discussion could not have been adequately conducted without a full knowledge of those voluminous documents, of the events which led to Mr. Gladstone's mission, and of the results which attended it, I found from an examination of those papers that it was almost impossible to give extracts from them, and equally impossible to lay the whole of the Correspondence before your Lordships, especially those parts relating to some of the proposed Resolutions, without producing a vast number of documents which would have involved recurrence to facts which had much better be buried in oblivion, and which, if revived, could but have cast considerable censure on some persons not here to explain or defend their proceedings. I took upon myself the liberty of requesting the noble Earl to forego the exercise of his own judgment in bringing forward this Motion; B THE DANUBIAN PRINCIPALITIES. QUESTION. THE EARL OF ST. GERMANS begged to ask the noble Lord the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, whether a Proclamation which appeared in The Times that morning, and which purported to be signed by "Alexander John Couza I., Prince"-not Hospodar-" of the United Principalities,' was genuine or not? After the caution which the noble Earl gave their Lordships the other evening he should not now advert to the question of the election of Colonel Couza, and the possible doubt of its validity, nor to the question of the union of those Provinces. But as this proclamation distinctly declared that the gentleman who called himself Prince Alexander John I, was about to mount the throne by virtue of his election, and made no mention whatever of the necessity of his investiture by the Ottoman Porte, or of the suzerainty of that Power, which was distinctly and expressly proclaimed by all the great Powers at Paris in August last, he was justified in asking the noble Earl whether that proclamation was or was not genuine. For his own part, he believed that the absolute independence of those Provinces was an absolute impossibility. Unless they were under the suzerainty of the Sublime Porte they must naturally fall to Russia, and that result would hardly be satisfactory to this country, which lately embarked in a great war to maintain the existing territorial limits of that Power. but I assure your Lordships that I would not have taken that course if I had not been very strongly confirmed in my views by a conversation which I have had with Mr. Gladstone since his return, and also by the strong expression of Sir Henry Storks, who, in writing, has stated the great anxiety with which he looked to the probable effect of any discussion whatever in Parliament at the present moment on the minds of the Ionian people. I think I should not do justice to my own opinion if I abstained from taking this opportunity of expressing my strong sense of the public spirit and patriotism which induced Mr. Gladstone, at great personal inconvenience, to undertake a very laborious, a very invidious, and a very thankless task, and to expose himself, as he naturally must, to much misrepresentation and misunderstanding. I think it right to take this opportunity of saying with regard to Mr. Gladstone that not only did he undertake that task at the request of a Government with which he had no political connection whatever, but that one condition attended the acceptance of the office, and that he made a sine quá non-namely, that beyond the payment of his actual expenses he should receive no remuneration in any shape or manner for his services. Mr. Gladstone's mission has had no positive results; but I cannot say that I regret it, for, although it has not led to any changes by legislation, whether desirable or not, it has had the effect of placing this country with regard to the Ionian Islands in a right position. It has shown to the Ionian Islands, to Europe, and to the world at large, that she is not the oppressor, but the protectress of those Islands, and that she is per-parently issuing from M. Couza. He had fectly prepared to give them an ample not seen it before, and he had not received measure of free institutions-larger, per- it officially at the Foreign Office. Whether haps, than some persons think desirable, it was a genuine document or a forgery yet, at all events, so large as bona fide to could signify very little at the present constitute them that free and independent moment. The Porte, according to the conRepublic, under the protectorate of this vention signed last year, had called the country, which was declared by the treaty Powers who signed that convention toassigning that protectorate. I have only gether to judge of certain events and acts again to return my thanks to the noble which had taken place since the constituEarl for having acquiesced in the request tion which that convention established had which I ventured to make to him. I am been put in force: stating that certain sure in so doing he will best consult the acts of illegality, and acts contrary to the public interests, and give great satisfaction spirit of the convention, had taken place to the present High Commissioner, whose in the provinces, and it would be for the position is one of considerable difficulty, Congress to consider and decide the points and to whom in such a position it must be laid before it by the Porte. He hoped the the wish of your Lordships to show every congress would be able to meet next week. consideration and afford every moral sup- It could not have met sooner, as the port in your power. Turkish Ambassador had only just re THE EARL OF MALMESBURY said, he had had his attention drawn to the proclamation published in The Times, and ap |