said, he would be sorry to cause any impediment to the passing of this Bill; inasmuch as he admitted that it contained a great deal of good. He thought that much evil would be inflicted on the people by the exercise of that power given to the Secretary of State by the 8th Clause. The Secretary of State was by this clause empowered to extend or diminish the jurisdiction of the courts, so as to equalize them all. He hoped that the right hon. Baronet would be induced to alter it.

could hold out no hope of the kind; for he considered the clause to be highly necessary to give effect to the principle of the Bill.

trusted that vessels returning to a British port in ballast, after landing a cargo at another British port, would be exempted from the pilotage dues exacted from foreign vessels. The hon. Member moved to leave certain words to give effect to this distinction.

seconded the Amendment.

thought the Amendment was brought forward at too late a period of the Session; and he should distinctly oppose any alteration in the clause.

objected to the measure, because it was to have a retrospective effect, and would counteract that Act of the Legislature which had been passed at an earlier period of the Session upon the subject, upon the faith of which engagements had been entered into which would be seriously affected by this Bill, if it was permitted to pass into a law. He should, therefore, move that it be committed this day three months.

said, that he did not think the hon. Member was borne out in his statement by the facts of the case. He merely wished the House to go, pro formâ, into Committee now, for the purpose of postponing the arguments upon it until Friday next, when it would be re-committed, and when the extent of the objections to the measure could be satisfactorily known. There was to be a meeting of Scotch bankers to-morrow on the subject.

protested against the principle of pressing forward this Bill, because the Scotch bankers were said to be favourable to it. They would, of course, be glad that this measure should pass; because it would have the effect of increasing their monopoly, and preventing new banks being established. This was a question which ought to be decided by the mercantile interests of Scotland, who were directly opposed to it. He merely asked the right hon. Gentleman to delay this Bill until they could fairly take the opinion of the people of Scotland upon its merits.

said, the Committee made this proposition on the expectation that speculation would be as rife this year as it was at present, and in consequence of the recent disclosures in Parliament, it was necessary to procure a more respectable body of shareholders. The Amendment of Standing Order 128 had reference to Ireland, and required that notices to landholders should be deposited with the clerks of the Unions.

considered such a sudden call upon all railways would work most detrimentally to the schemes as public works, and prove a source of very considerable injustice to those persons who had already signed contracts upon the faith of their being required to deposit only 5l. per cent. He moved to omit the words "one-tenth" for the purpose of inserting "onetwentieth."

hoped the House would agree to the Amendment suggested by the Committee in their Report. Considering the mania for speculation which had been exhibited in this country during the past year, and the mode in which the share lists had been proved to have been filled up, he considered that the Committee were perfectly justified in their recommendation, and that the House ought, upon public grounds, to adopt it. Were the Standing Orders so amended, the public would have some security for the completion of the projects by the necessarily increased respectability of the parties promoting them.

also suggested the extreme inconvenience that would be caused to shareholders in projected companies by the adoption of this rule.

observed, that the effect of the rule would be to give an unfair advantage in the case of those railroads which were already formed, and to operate as a great injustice on those which were only projected.

said, that the effect of this order would be most unjust on those shareholders who had signed the Parliamentary deeds on the faith of the existing orders, and who had been led to believe that only a certain amount would be demanded of them until an Act of Parliament was obtained.

observed, that the injustice of the proposed arrangement might be obviated by confining its operation to companies hereafter to be projected, and not applying it to those which were provisionally registered, or in which the deposits had been paid and the deeds signed.

said, that some such regulation as this appeared absolutely necessary, in order to stop the mania for speculating in railway shares. He doubted very much whether the rule would be found to operate so injuriously as was supposed, and whether the cases in which the increased deposit would be readily paid would not so far preponderate as to render it scarcely necessary to consider the others.

did not consider that the alteration would prove any guarantee that the share lists were not filled up by fictitious names in the very same manner as heretofore. However, as the feeling of the House seemed to be in favour of the proposition of the noble Lord, he would withdraw his Amendment.

rose to move—

"That a Select Committee be appointed, to investigate the allegations contained in the Petition of Colonel Augustus Lautour, presented to this House June the 6th, 1844, and printed with the Votes June the 26th, 1844, and to report their opinion to the House."

The claim was founded upon these circumstances. Certain regulations were issued by the Colonial Office in December, 1828, relative to the granting of lands at the Swan River, and containing a stipulation for reclaiming them within a period of twenty-one years. In conformity with these regulations, Colonel Lautour expended a sum of 40,000l., and sent out 200 labourers to the settlement; but a question had subsequently arisen whether these regulations were binding upon the Government. This being the ground of the doubt, subsequent regulations were issued in January, 1829, declaring that if lands were not reclaimed within ten years, they should revert absolutely to the Crown. In this state of affairs, the Crown having set up a claim to the possession of Colonel Lautour's lands at the expiration of ten years, and the claim being contested, the question was referred to the law officers of the Crown, and both the Attorney and Solicitor General gave their opinions that the regulations of 1828 were binding. Subsequently, however, the present Government referred the question to Sir Thomas Wilde, and he declared that the former opinion was delivered upon an imperfect statement and an erroneous view of the case, and stated that he had then no doubt that the regulations of 1828 were invalid, because they had not been officially promulgated. An argument, however, was raised that Colonel Lautour had put himself out of court by his own admission, in a letter addressed to Mr. Horace Twiss when Under Secretary for the Colonies, in which the petitioner assured that functionary that his capital had been invested on the faith of the original regulations, and expressed a hope that he should not be considered intrusive in "soliciting the indulgence" of twenty-one years instead of ten. Now, this might be said to be a courteous mode of insisting upon a right; and, as in all contracts between the Crown and its subjects, a generous and forbearing construction ought to be put upon the terms, he trusted that no advantage would be taken of this expression of Colonel Lautour's, even if it were an inadvertence. It appeared to him that this claim of Colonel Latour's was founded upon justice, and he hoped it would receive the indulgent consideration of the Government.

said, it was admitted on the part of Colonel Lautour, that if he was only entitled under the regulations of 1829, he had no claim whatever. Now, the publication of the regulations was essential to their validity, and there was not the slightest evidence that those of December, 1828, ever were published. Sir Thomas Wilde, in his more recent opinion, declared most decisively that there was no claim under the regulations of 1828. [Mr. Gibson: Because they had not been published.] There were other reasons also. Colonel Lautour had not complied with the conditions. Sir Thomas Wilde stated, as the hon. Member had said, that his former opinion was founded upon an imperfect statement of the case. The fact was, that Colonel Lautour had got 100,000 acres to which he had no title, and then he came forward with that as a ground why he should get 140,000 more. The hon. Gentleman then read a letter from Colonel Lautour, written at the latter end of the year 1829, and received at the Colonial Office in the January following, and which, he contended, was in itself a sufficient answer to the claim.

would not press the Motion to a division; but he trusted that he had said enough to induce Her Majesty's Government to take the subject into their consideration.