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HOUSE OF LORDS, FRIDAY, JULY 31.
MUNICIPAL CORPORATIONS BILL.

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    Mr Knight next proceeded to address their lordships. The learned gentleman commenced by stating that the bill on which it was his duty to speak, as counsel with Sir C Wetherell, was justly designated by that learned personage a bill of pains and penalties, and not one of the reforming and wisely-regulating character which its framers represented it to be. It was levelled against selected corporations, others having been ommitted for reasons which had not been, nor ever could be, stated. It went to annihilate 185 of these bodies, the majority of which had existed, with their charters, customs, and modes of elections, untouched for centuries, turning away their offices, and substituting others to be elected by persons possessing only household suffrage, without any other qualification. These new officers would, therefore, according to the democratic provisions of the bill, and the democratic spirit of the communities for whom it was constituted, be elected from the lower and less educated classes of society; and yet in them were to be invested the funds of charitable testators, without any efficient control, unless it could be imagined by the most obscure and remote inference—without any thing like the power to call those to legal account who violated their trust which certainly existed in the present state of the law. Of the officers whose functions were to be destroyed by this bill there were 148 recorders, besides town-clerks, chamberlains, treasurers, and many others holding valuable and useful offices. Freehold offices were to be turned out of their freeholds without any positive remuneration, or such compensation as the Lords of the Treasury might choose to give. Was there any parallel to this in the annals of their lordships' house? He should abstain from remarking on the importance and connexion with the polity and institutions of the country whose corporations had for ages sustained. Bulwarks of the constitution, supporters of the monarchy, yet independent of the Crown, they had guarded the country against the inroads of republicanism and the evils of democracy. He trusted, therefore, that no such unlooked-for course should be pursued by their lordships as to consider that a general instead of a partial bill, the bill of policy and not one of party. This was a partial bill, aimed only at particular corporations. Out of those boroughs which were visited, ninety-nine in number, ninety-nine municipal corporations were omitted from this bill. Foremost among them stood London. There were many smaller places, but it would be found on investigation, that from the returns some of these had a greater population than some which were included in the bill. He would beg to call their lordships' attention to the omissions in this bill. He found that Christchurch, Petersfield, Usk, Holt, Radnor, were omitted in this bill; that Llantrisant, Conway, Wilton, Woodstock, Aldborough, Burton-upon-Trent, Farnborough, and a vast variety of corporations of different dimensions and populations, had been omitted, and without any reason assigned. Yet it was natural to ask, and the lordships had a right to inquire, why some corporations should be exposed to confiscation and others preserved? This fact was a sufficient answer to the argument that this was a general bill, applicable to corporations in general. The great object of the institution of corporations was, that there should be a permanent, and established, system of local government; and in the existing corporations the principles were permanent ones, but in the new system all was fluctuating. in the old system the members were inseparably linked to the corporation by their qualifications; in the present there was nothing permanent, all was fluctuating, so that it differed essentially from the abstract idea of a corporation. The new burgesses who were to come in the place of the extinguished burgessses (who were freemen) where to consist of inhabitants merely. It was to be completely a popular government, and he (Mr Knight) could not understand why the name of a corporation should be preserved. Better would it be to abolish corporations altogether, and place the power of the municipal magistracy at once in the hands of the crown, than to establish these institutions under the false and delusive name of corporations. The offices of the new corporations were irresponsible; the ministers of the Crown would be responsible: it would, therefore, be infinitely better to abolish corporations altogether, and to place the government in the hands of the crown. Let it then, be so; but let it be openly done; let not the country be deluded by the name of an ancient institution; let it not be attempted, under a false and borrowed name, to raise a real democracy. He would ask their lordships whether, after what he had stated, he was not justified in saying that this bill was a measure of destruction, not of regulation? There was one more point which was important, namely, the absence of qualifications, which gave the power of taxing property to those who might have little or no stake in the country, who contributed nothing at all to the funds of the corporation, and who had therefore not the slightest interest in checking the expenditure.