Mr. O'GORMAN MAHON.I must say I have heard with most unequivocal delight and satisfaction the statement of the Honorable Member. It appears, from the statements of the petitioners, that Scot-. land is in a dissatisfied state; thus it appears that both England and Scotland have cause for dissatisfaction and discontent, but yet poor Ireland is not to complain. I concur most cordially in the sentiments expressed by the Honorable Member; it is now apparent that Scotchmen are beginning to complain and feel that distress which is so universal. There is a strong affinity between Scotland and Ireland. I am most happy to hear those sentiments escaping from him with regard to Ireland. But if Scotland is discontented, how much greater cause bas. Ireland to be dissatisfied? Scotland is not obliged to give a tenth of its property to a church which is of no use whatever to it. Scotland keeps up her independence. I wish to God Ireland could have done the same. It is vain for Government to expect that peace or tranquillity can ever be restored to Ireland until that worst of all incubi, the Established Church, is removed. It is absurd to suppose that the people of Ireland should be ground down by a Church to which they do not belong, and be called upon to pay a tenth of the produce of their soil, to a Church which is of no use to them whatever. HOUSE OF Lords, Feb. 17, 1831. Earl SPENCER presented petitions from Northampton and Wellingborough. Earl RADNOR presented one from St. Pancras, Middlesex, and another from Calne. Earl GLENGALL presented one from Navan, HOUSE OF LORDS, Feb. 18, 1831. Earl ROSEBERRY presented a petition from Alnwick. The LORD CHANCELLOR. -I have the honor of presenting a petition signed by upwards of 21,700 persons in Edinburgh, who, in their petition, assert what is well known, that the representation of Scotland, if so it may be called, is neither an actual nor a virtual representation. They state that in Scotland the representation is entirely a mockery; and that, by the law as it now stands, all the Members might be returned by persons who never saw the soil of the country. The petitioners pray your Lordships to remedy the evils created by the system in Scotland, by adopting some plan for the improving the representation of that country. Independently of my connexion with his Majesty's Government, I am now, as I always have been, an advocate for a temperate, safe, and effective reform, at the same time that I am as true a friend to all the established forms of the Constitution, as any of those can be who are loudest in their denunciation of any reform, and who are most anxious for the preservation of existing abuses; and, my Lords, I am as D it on much an enemy to rash and untried theories on this, as I have been to the adoption of wild theories and visionary plans of reform on matters of far less importance. I rejoice that a system of reform, such as I allude to, has received the unanimous support of that Government of which I have the honor to be a Member. To state at present any thing of the nature of the intended plan of reform, would be to depart from that resolution which Ministers have taken, as firmly to press the attention of Parliament, as not to divulge any part of it until the time shall arrive when the whole will be submitted to Parliament,a course as wise as it is respectful to Parliament itself. It is wise that to Parliament the first communication of the plan should come, except the respectful communication to a high quarter-that gracious Prince, whom my Colleagues and myself have the honor to serve, and of whose assent to the whole plan we are entirely and confidently as sured. I have another petition from the city of Glasgow, which has still more reason to complain of the state of the representation of Scotland than that of Edinburgh. The latter city is said to have the choice of one Member, I do not say it has-to state that the inhabitants of Edin. burgh send one Member to Parliament is only a fashion of talking; for that Member is not the choice of the 140,000 inhabitants of the city, but of 33 gentlemen, very respectable, no doubt, in their way; but I would venture to say, that a man might visit Edinburgh over and over again, without ever once hearing the name of the town council, by whom this one Member is sent to Parliament. These gentlemen take upon themselves the task of saving their fellow-citizens the trouble of selecting a fit and proper person to repre sent them in Parliament. They also manage the fiscal affairs of that city just so well as to preserve its corporation from becoming bankrupt, after the fashion of some other corporations in that country, whose leading members, the bailies, as they are called, when they contrive to involve the affairs of the town in complete ruin, leave the people to get out of the scrape as they may. By good fortune, however, this is not the case in Edinburgh. But while Edinburgh enjoys the nominal advantage of having one Member to represent it, Glasgow, with its population of 240,000 and upwards, has only a fractional part of a Member, it has no more than a fourth; the other fractional parts, constituting one whole Member, being shared by other burghs, some of them very ancient, no doubt, but numbering very few inhabitants. The petitioners pray the House to adopt some measure for removal of the evils of which they complain; and, considering the nature of their grounds of complaint, I cannot but admire the calmness and temperance with which they present their case to the House. The LORD CHANCELLOR also presented petitions from the county of Cornwall and the town of Portsmouth. Earl GREY presented petitions from Aberdeen, Irvine, Renfrew, Bathgate, Caithness, Dumfries, Kinross, Milnathort, and Newcastleupon-Tyne: the latter praying for vote by ballot. from Scotchmen resident in Dublin, and from the inhabitants of Craigrothie and Chance Inn: the two last praying for vote by ballot. Mr. H. GURNEY presented a petition from the Isle of Wight. HOUSE OF LORDS, Feb. 21, 1831. Lord DACRE presented petitions from Bishop's Stortford and Truro. Earl RADNOR presented similar petitions from the inhabitants and Political Union of Bilston, also from Malmesbury and Lincoln. HOUSE OF COMMONS, Feb. 21, 1831. Mr. J. WOOD.-I have to present a petition from what is technically called the rotten borough of Downton, the members for which place, I am told, are elected by six persons, and these electors named by a Noble Lord, and the people at large in the borough have no share in it. I believe the mode of election to be this: on the day appointed for the election, the agent for the Noble Lord, who is the patron of the borough, goes down provided with the requisite number of parchmeuts, which he delivers to those inhabitants by whom the election is to be made; they go through the form of voting, and he then receives back the parchments to be used again in the same manner when the same occasion shall again occur. As there are two representatives for the borough in this House, I challenge them to deny the statement, if it is not true. The petition is signed by 260 persons, and, among others, it bears the signature of the mayor, the bailiffs, many of the corporation, and a large portion of the most respectable inhabitants. I trust that his Majesty's Ministers will take this borough, with others similarly situated, into their consideration, with a view to a reform. The next petition which I have to present, shews how different the feelings of the people are on the subject of reform from what they were alleged to be a short time ago. It is most numerously signed, and is from the town of Stockport; and the petitioners complain that they, with nine-tenths of the community, have no share in returning Members to this House. They state that the people have to support all the burdens of the country, but that they have little or no share in the election of Members of the House of Commons, and that they have in the manufacturing districts none. They complain that, although there are. 50,000 inhabitants within half a mile of the parish church of Stockport, yet that they have not the least share in the elective franchise. They add, that the nearest borough in which it does exist is twenty-five miles from Stockport, and that the population contained within the circle of those twenty-five miles, amounts to 900,000 persons, all of whom are without representatives. Now what a contrast is this to the return of two Members who are, in point of fact, the nominees of a Noble Lord. These petitioners, I think, have just ground of complaint that there is no person in this House to whom they can intrust their interests; and they say, that they do not petition alone for themselves, but for all the unrepresented people of Great Britain and Ireland, and they conclude with hoping that this House will so effectually reform itself, that it may really and truly be called the representative of the people. I have also petitions from Todmorden and Walsden in favor of reform and vote by ballot. Mr. BENETT presented a petition from Devizes. Mr. HODGES presented a petition from land-owners in Bromley, Beckenham, Lewisham, Leeds, and other places in Kent, praying for HOUSE OF COMMONS, Feb. 23, 1831. Mr. BORRODAILE presented a petition for reform from Newcastleunder-Line. Mr. BEAUMONT presented a similar one from Alnwick. Mr. B. CARTER presented one from Portsmouth, where the right of voting is confined to the mayor, aldermen, and a few other persons. Mr. SANDFORD presented similar petitions from Stoke St. Mary and Marlborough, the first praying for vote by ballot. Sir J. MACKINTOSH presented petitions from Elgin, Fortrose, Rosemarkie, and Moray; also from the weavers of Glasgow. Sir M. W. RIDLEY presented a petition from Newcastle-uponTyne. HOUSE OF LORDS, Feb. 25, 1831, Earl GOWER presented a petition from the Staffordshire potteries signed by 65,000 names, praying that the right of sending members to parliament might be extended to them. Earl SPENCER presented a petition from the City of London in favor of reform. Earl DUDLEY presented one from Dudley. Earl GREY presented similar ones from Bristol, Berwick-onTweed, Belfast, Thorne, Devonport, Stoke Dameral, Winchester, Bilston, and Tichfield; and also from the mayor and common council of Waterford. The Marquis of LANSDOWNE presented one from Lymington. The LORD CHANCELLOR presented a similar one from Leeds, signed by upwards of 17,000 names. HOUSE OF COMMONS, Mr. TRAIL presented petitions from Stromness and Wick.-Mr. R. GORDON from Cricklade and Dursley. The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER from the counties of Montgomery, Monmouth, and Dumbarton; also from the towns of Manchester, Bristol, Ludlow, Wigan, Wilborough, Hastings, Brighton, and Penryn. Mr. H. DAVIS presented a petition from Bristol against Parliamentary Reform. Mr. C. TYRRELL presented a petition in favor of reform from Bury St. Edmond's. Lord STANLEY.-I have to present a petition from the inhabitants of Liverpool in favor of reform, which states that the population of the town consists of 180,000 souls, but that the right of voting for members is confined to about 4000 or 5000. This they contend is inconsistent with the interests of so large a town, and they therefore pray that the franchise may be extended to all substantial householders. Petitions were presented by Mr. |