This page lists every recorded use of the words injurious and injuriously in parliamentary debate during 1819. Each instance is reproduced in its context as recorded in Hansard.
This survey forms part of the evidence for the correct legal interpretation of injurious weeds in the Weeds Act 1959. See also why “harmful weeds” misrepresents the law.
| Speaker | Context |
|---|---|
| Lord Normanby | But the continuance of a violent or unnatural remedy, after the cause which occasioned its application is removed, is no less injurious to the political constitution of a state, than the physical constitution of an individual; and weakening and detrimental as the continuance of this system is to this part of the united kingdom, how much more extended and baneful have been its effects upon the other; preying as it did for a century upon her vitals, and poisoning the springs of her existence! |
| Mr. Lyttelton | Its effects in that respect on the ignorant portion of the population were most injurious. |
| Mr. Lyttelton | "That by the Establishment of State Lotteries, a spirit of Gambling, injurious in the highest degree to the morals of the people, is encouraged and provoked: 2. |
| Mr. Fowell Buxton | Here was a tax which impaired the integrity of the people; which was injurious to their industry, and which excited in them the most delusive and ruinous expectations. |
| Mr. Canning | But his hon. friend well knew, for among all the transcendent abilities which he possessed, he thought his tactic in debate one of his greatest—his hon. friend knew as well, and better than he did, that lately they were asked to repeal the salt tax, because it was injurious to agriculture, commerce, and the morality of the people. |
| Mr. Canning | They were asked also to repeal the leather tax, because it was highly injurious to the agriculture, commerce, and morals of the country. |
| Mr. Canning | Nay, among other immoral taxes, very lately they had been applied to, to abolish the spirit tax in Ireland, as exceedingly injurious to the agriculture, commerce, and the morals of the people. |
| Mr. Bennet | The arbitrary power which magistrates enjoyed of depriving a man of his license and his living, without the assignment of any reason, was a great evil in the existing law: he did not mean to cast any slur upon the general impartiality of the mode in which magistrates discharged this part of their duty in the country: cases of oppression could be pointed out, but they were few in number compared with the metropolis, where, according to the evidence before the committee, a system of petty tyranny had been carried on to a most injurious and shameful extent. |
| Mr. Bennet | An artificial value had been given to public houses, throughout the country, by the licenses given to them; the consequence of which was, that they generally fell into the hands of the brewers them, selves, who were thus enabled to sell a deleterious compound, very injurious to the health of their customers. |
| Mr. Shaw | I have certainly every reason to be grateful to the House for their indulgence on a former occasion, but I hope I may add, without presumption, my sincere wishes that, in debating this question, Ireland will not now, as on the last occasion, be upbraided with not having supported her share of the public burthens—that she will not now be taunted for not having done that which it it has been long since ascertained it was impossible for her to have done; at the same time I would respectfully suggest, that it by no means follows that because Ireland may (no matter from what causes) have been deficient in her contribution to the public exigencies, a tax so unequal in its pressure, and so injurious in its consequences to the health of the community, should be obstinately persevered in. |
| Lord Archibald Hamilton | But while these acts, or such parts of them as were thus beneficial to the burgesses, had been held in courts of law to be in desuetude; other parts of them, which supported the unjust and injurious power of the magistrates, were in full force. |
| Lord Archibald Hamilton | But he conceived that the act of union had not—that it never could be intended to have—such a preposterous and injurious an effect.—The great question for the House to consider was, whether the petitioners, from their own statements, supported by the opinion of a former committee of this House, laboured under such grievances as required interference of the legislature, and if so, in what way parliament ought to interfere. |
| Sir R. Wilson | Now, he thought it would be very unfair and injurious to the service, if they were to be permitted to count this as part of their time, and so be enabled, eventually, to dispose of their commissions. |
| Mr. Huskisson | He complained of the moral evils which were produced by the old law upon the agricultural population, and contended it was most desirable to amend a system so productive of injurious effects. |
| The Marquis of Lansdowne | Another injurious consequence to this country was, that the possession of Florida gave the United States a commanding influence over the present black governments, or any which might hereafter be formed in the West Indies. |
| Mr. Fowell Buxton | Many causes had concurred to produce this state of things, but the great cause was that system which had been so fatal and injurious to the landed interest of this country, the system of paying wages partly out of the pocket of the master, and partly out of the poor-rates—that system, which, beginning in agricultural districts, had extended itself at last to large manufacturing districts, and had long been in operation in Coventry. |
| Mr. Philips | said, that so far from all the master-weavers agreeing that the Spitalfields act had been beneficial in its operation, the very first witness examined, Mr. Stephen Wilson, who stated himself largely concerned in the manufacture of Spitalfields goods, was of opinion it had been highly injurious to Spitalfields. |
| Mr. Wallace | He was anxious to point out to the House on what ground reflections injurious to the collection of the revenue were made. |
| Lord Castlereagh | But as his hon. and learned friend had moved for the repeal, it was thought proper to bring in a bill to uphold our neutrality, and to prevent the subjects of this country from entering into a service injurious to an acknowledged state. |
| Mr. E. Douglas | On every view of the injurious effects of the bill, he felt bound to oppose it. |
| Mr. Wilberforce | He sincerely hoped that some change would be made in the present system of game laws, a change that would permit the fair indulgence of hospitality, and be less injurious to the practice of morality. |
| The Bishop of Peterborough | For though the boon which is asked at present is a grant only of civil power, yet if the acquisition of this power shall lead to consequences injurious to the established church your lordships will surely contemplate those consequences before you resolve to grant the power which is now desired. |
| The Lord Chancellor | When religious opinions were attended with political effects injurious to the society to which their professors belonged, that society had a right to exclude them from offices of trust and emolument. |
| Mr. Tierney | She had obtained from Spain, the Floridas, and had thus been allowed to take up a position on a vast continent as injurious as possible to the colonial returns of this country, putting them in imminent and undeniable jeopardy. |
| Mr. Tierney | Therefore, he contended that ministers had done worse than nothing; they had neglected every opportunity of doing good; they had pursued only what was base in principle and injurious in practice, and had thrown aside all those considerations of generosity and policy, and love of freedom, which formerly were the prime movers of the British cabinet. |
| Lord Castlereagh | He could assure the House, that as far as this country or the other allied powers were concerned, there was not a feeling entertained injurious to France, or against which any Frenchman could justly entertain a jealousy. |
| Mr. William Lamb | It was this want of plan, this absence of all system, this disconnection in the measures of the government—at all times so prejudicial to the interests of a nation—and in the present state of our financial difficulties, so peculiarly injurious, that had induced him to support 509 the proposition of his right hon. friend, It was for the House to decide, as should seem mete to their feelings. |
| Mr. Marryatt | No sooner was this compilation printed and circulated, than the right hon. gentleman's house was besieged with deputations of merchants engaged in different branches of commerce, praying to be heard against various parts of his intended plan, and predicting that the most injurious consequences would result from its adoption. |
| Lord Ebrington | All who were acquainted with the west of England knew, that the best ma- 573 nure for the soil of Devonshire was lime: lime was not to be had without fuel; so that the high price of coal and culm, had a directly injurious effect on agriculture and the improvement of land. |
| Mr. E. Littleton | After several manufactures had arisen under certain taxes, to repeal those taxes at once would occasion a revulsion injurious to those manufactures, and most injurious, for a considerable time, to the country at large. |
| Mr. E. Littleton | After several manufactures had arisen under certain taxes, to repeal those taxes at once would occasion a revulsion injurious to those manufactures, and most injurious, for a considerable time, to the country at large. |
| Mr. E. Littleton | How injurious must this prove to immense capitalists in the coal trade! |
| Lord Milton | He viewed the present question with considerable apprehension, because he believed, though it was not avowed, that it was but an indirect way of getting at an equalization of the tax; a measure most injurious to the interests of the great manufacturing parts of the kingdom. |
| Mr. W. Smith | A tax which in its nature was unequal, must be injurious to the country at large. |
| Mr. Sinclair | Such an impost was anticipated in every part of Scotland with the strongest feelings of alarm and dismay; not only because it would be highly injurious to the manufacturers, but because it would be an act of gross injustice towards the community at large, inasmuch as the tax on sea-borne coal had already been commuted in Scotland for an impost 583 of a different kind. |
| Mr. Maxwell | The county which he had the honour to represent, and the district in which he lived, was filled with coal mines and studded with manufactories; to it any duty would, in consequence, be highly injurious and unjust; for they had built large edifices for their manufactures, 586 upon the faith of cheap fuel, and the coal proprietor had embarked his capital in mines on the faith of their continuance. |
| Lord Althorp, | But, beside the falsehood of the principle itself, the consequences proved most injurious both to the debtor and the creditor in many instances. |
| General Hart | He was glad to find the eyes and ears of ministers open to this question; and he was sure, now that they looked at the existing oppression with a serious intention of removing it, they would find the most cordial co-operation, on the part of the gentlemen of Ireland, in suppressing illicit distillation, which, besides being the bane of the morals of the people, withdrew their labours and attention from the cultivation of the soil, which pro tanto subtracted from the wealth of the country, by diminishing the rent of the landlord, and operating injuriously upon the profit of the labourer. |
| Mr. Hutchinson | They first displayed a decided hostility to this motion; they then yielded to their opponents, and without notice, or giving any reason for changing sides, took the opposite course; the consequence of which was, from its versatility, very injurious to the interests of the chief distillers of Ireland. |
| The Earl of Harrowby | With regard to the petition presented by the noble lord, from petitioners no doubt highly respectable, it appeared to him, that they had entirely misapprehended the object of the plan proposed by the committee, no forced or injurious diminution of the circulating medium being contemplated by the committee, who, on the contrary, had arranged their plan with the express view, by means of its gradual operation, of preventing that forced diminution of the circulating medium, which would undoubtedly be injurious. |
| The Earl of Harrowby | With regard to the petition presented by the noble lord, from petitioners no doubt highly respectable, it appeared to him, that they had entirely misapprehended the object of the plan proposed by the committee, no forced or injurious diminution of the circulating medium being contemplated by the committee, who, on the contrary, had arranged their plan with the express view, by means of its gradual operation, of preventing that forced diminution of the circulating medium, which would undoubtedly be injurious. |
| The Earl of Liverpool | And yet, their lordships were told in the petition which had been recently presented by a noble earl, "That the measures in contemplation, as recommended by the Secret Committees of both Houses of parliament, would tend to a forced, precipitate, and highly injurious contraction of the circulating medium." Now, as the operation of the proposed measures was not to commence until February next, and even then only enjoined the exchange under certain conditions of Bank of England notes for bullion, at a price somewhat above what is now the market price, and as it is not proposed to compel the Bank to return to cash payments for four years, he confessed himself at a loss to understand how such propositions could be termed "a forced and precipitate contraction of the circulating medium of the country." A noble earl had asked, whether it was in the power of the Bank at any time to bring gold to the Mint price by contrading their issues of paper. |
| The Earl of Liverpool | If it were admitted, that the resumption of cash 618 payments was desirable, the question for their lordships to determine was, whether it could be accomplished by any course more gradual, and therefore less injurious, than the course recommended in the report. |
| The Earl of Liverpool | If done gradually, he was persuaded that no injurious effects whatever would result from it. |
| The Earl of Lauderdale | It would be highly injurious to export fixed capital to the amount of 15,000,000l. |
| Lord Grenville | There were others who maintained that the measure was of the greatest service to the commercial world, although it might be injurious and even ruinous to the other interests of the community. |
| Mr. Cartwright | said, he was not disposed to give the bill his support, as its operation would, in his opinion, be very injurious to parishes. |
| Mr. Bennet | He should not, however, press the clause extending to country magistrates, not because he did not think it in some degree necessary, but because he would not risk its application to the abuses that reigned so widely and injuriously in the metropolis. |
| Mr. Peel | There were occasions when what was called a run on the Bank might be arrested in its injurious effects by an increase of the issues. |
| Mr. Peel | Let them recollect, that the fluctuations of price which an inconvertible paper currency occasioned, were injurious to the labourer, who found no compensation in the rise of his wages at one time for the evils inflicted by a depression at another. |
| Mr. J. P. Grant | And what was there so salutary and necessary in those regulations, that they should be retained against even the conviction of one man, that they were most unwise and injurious? |
| Mr. Tierney | The system was proposed on the other side as a security against possible dangers; but he would ask in his turn, if there were not in that very system a possible danger of establishing a precedent of most injurious consequences? |
| Mr. Tierney | It turned out also on the evidence, that the Bank had remonstrated against the foreign loan as injurious to the exchanges, and this previous to the proposal of the renewal of the restriction; yet the chancellor of the exchequer had come down to continue it only for one year, when he must have been morally certain that a specie circulation could not be retored by the date appointed. |
| Mr. Tierney | The directors might have been duped, but at least their dupery was less injurious to the nation than the conspiracy || 733 of ministers. |
| The Chancellor of the Exchequer | That, however, might cause a very injurious difference in the actual value of notes of the same nominal amount. |
| Sir H. Parnell | Concurring, as he did, at the time, with the wise principles of political economy which that Report embraced, he was happy to find them now recognized by those who had the power to carry them completely into effect; because he was thoroughly satisfied, that the adoption of any system contrary to those principles, must be most injurious to the permanent and the best interests of the country. |
| Sir H. Parnell | For it was evident; that if those laws remained in their present state they must operate very injuriously with regard to the supply of capital for the purposes of trade, by diminishing the means of obtaining discounts. |
| Mr. Cripps | A restricted issue could only be a refusal to discount good bills at legal dates; and such a restricted issue, it would easily be allowed, must be injurious. |
| Mr. J. Smith | The reports in circulation against them were as false as they were injurious. |
| Mr. Pearse | But he had a great objection to the intermediate propositions respecting payments in bullion: which, in his opinion, would tend only to a species of gambling on the exchange that would be very injurious to the Bank. |
| Mr. Frankland Lewis | Such a relief was contrary to the very foundation of property in this country, and was reviving some ancient but at the same time most injurious usages. |
| The Chancellor of the Exchequer | In the mean while the power of so applying it was one of the means possessed by the treasury to protect the public from the injurious effects of the combination alluded to by the hon. gentleman. |
| Mr. Denman | But as the proposed law now stood, with the terrible power which it gave to Custom-house officers to detain ships having on board any person who was suspected of even entertaining an intention to enter into the service of the Spanish colonies, it would be put into active operation, and would be productive of most injurious consequences. |
| Mr. Marryat | Thus we are connected with America by a chain of gold, like that by which the poets fabled that Earth was suspended to the vault of Heaven; and Spain has no right to break this chain, by carrying on a war of devastation and extermination, injurious to all her neighbours, and ruinous both to herself and colonies. |
| The Chancellor of the Exchequer | Whether that should 920 be done by one tax or by another appeared to him to be a matter of comparative unimportance; although he allowed that care should be taken to select such imposts as might be least injurious to the country. |
| Lord Castlereagh | If it did amount to that, unquestionably the first act of parliament ought to be to diminish that sinking fund, which would 944 be in truth most injurious to the whole property of the kingdom. |
| Mr. Grenfell | It was, perhaps, natural that the corporation should feel some degree of resentment against government, which, after 25 years of subserviency, had at last broken the fetters by which they had been so long and so injuriously bound; and he was not surprised that the directors now came forward and considered such an attempt as a resistance to their high and mighty authority. |
| Mr. Grenfell | It would be easy to go more at large into this point, but he would merely congratulate ministers that they had at length effected their emancipation from a species of tyranny as disgraceful to the government as injurious to the best interests of the country. |
| The Bishop of Norwich | said:—Unaccustomed, and in general, very unwilling, to address your lordships; upon the present occasion, I rise, with great satisfaction, to second a motion, which, as it strikes me, those only can consistently oppose, who are prepared to maintain, that religious opinions, merely speculative, and having no influence whatever on practice, may notwithstanding, be justly made a ground, for excluding respectable individuals from situations of honour and emolument in a state; or rather, from the 1049 capacity of holding such situations; a capacity, which has been considered, by some of the ablest men, whom this country ever produced, as ranking among the common rights of subjects, unless it can be clearly shown, that the principles in question, are obviously injurious to the welfare of the government, or incompatible with the due discharge of our social, moral, or political duties. |
| Mr. Western | The burthen of their duties were already, in some places, beyond what the magistrates could well get through; and, if these were to be increased, we should be obliged soon to have pensioned chairmen upon every bench in the country, and which, above all things, he should most deprecate.—He concluded by moving, "That an humble Address be presented to his royal highness the Prince Regent, humbly to represent to his Royal Highness, that this House has taken into its serious consideration the returns of prisoners tried in the last Lent assizes, in England and Wales, which, in consequence of an address of this House, his Royal Highness was graciously pleased to order to be laid before it; and further to represent to his Royal Highness, that it appears by the said returns, that, of the prisoners tried at the last assizes in England and Wales, exclusive of Middlesex, 405 were in prison before 1075 the 1st of October last, which number was increased to 1,270 before the 1st of January, and which was further increased to 2,700 at the commencement of the Lent assizes; that those of the first period had consequently lain in prison from six to eight months before they were brought to trial; those of the second period from three to six months; and together accumulating the total number beyond what the gaols are capable of containing; that this House cannot but feel, that, though the practice has now prevailed for a considerable number of years of delivering the gaols only twice a year, that yet so long an interval as that which occurs between the Summer and Spring assizes, and so long a delay of justice as necessarily follows therefrom, is productive of the most injurious and fatal consequences; that, without detailing the various evils attendant upon long imprisonment, and the obvious injustice of inflicting so severe a punishment before trial, this House thinks it necessary to observe, that it appears by the said returns, that a very large proportion of those prisoners, who have been actually convicted of felony, have been considered to be sufficiently punished by sentence of imprisonment for a shorter period of time than one-seventh of the total number have actually endured before they are brought before a jury of their country; that this House, adverting to the practice of former times, has seen, that in all those enactments on which the basis of the administration of justice is founded, that it has ever been a primary object of the laws to obviate the possibility of long imprisonment before trial; that, without reciting the different provisions that at different periods of our history have been enacted for this purpose, this House will only beg leave to point out and humbly to represent to his Royal Highness, that the statute of 4th Edward 3rd, c. |
| Lord Milton | It appeared to him that nothing could be more injurious than to bring up the children of the poor as public pledges in these repositories. |
| The Earl of Rosslyn | He next adverted to the evidence of the medical witnesses, who stated that heat alone was not injurious to the human frame, and described even the transition from heat to cold as only sometimes attended with bad effects. |
| The Earl of Rosslyn | The present bill, however, did not provide against this evil: its object was, to limit the hours of labour, and the inconvenience of passing from heat to cold was just as likely to be injurious after 11 hours of employment as after 12 or 14. |
| The Earl of Rosslyn | He did not mean to contend from this that the employment of children from 12 to 14 hours in cotton mills was in itself beneficial to health, but as it appeared to be less injurious than other occupations, he thought it unfair that it should be particularly selected for animadversion, and even legislative interference. |
| Mr. Brougham | The complaints as to the past would be endless and the result must be an injurious impediment to the free communication of the proceedings of the House to the public. |
| The Earl of Lauderdale | It had been argued, that as it was declared in a report of the privy council that silver coin had been depreciated 25 per cent from the year 1774 to 1779, the Mint regulations by which silver was depreciated only 9½ per cent could have no injurious effect. |
| The Earl of Liverpool | A sufficient check against any injurious effects from the state of the silver coinage existed in its limitation. |
| The Marquis of Lansdowne | Though he felt the House had inherently the privilege of protecting the witnesses whom it thought proper to examine, from any consequences arising from the disclosures made in their evidence, still the evidence, thus given might afford a clue to the discovery of circumstances, from whence injurious consequences might result to the witnesses. |
| Mr. Ricardo | He said, that he hoped the House and his hon. friend would understand that he was not contending that the taxing of necessaries was not injurious to labourers, but that it was no more injurious to them than any other mode of taxation. |
| Mr. Ricardo | He said, that he hoped the House and his hon. friend would understand that he was not contending that the taxing of necessaries was not injurious to labourers, but that it was no more injurious to them than any other mode of taxation. |
| Mr. Dickinson | thought that it was impossible to manufacture our woollen cloths without a certain portion of foreign wool, and that this additional tax would have a most injurious effect. |
| Lord Lascelles | regarded this tax as most unseasonable, impolitic, and injurious. |
| Mr. Burrell | The immense importations of corn proved most injurious to the growers of corn; and the same observation was applicable to wool. |
| Sir W. Scott | There could be no solecism more injurious in itself, or more mischievous in its consequences, than to argue that the subjects of a state had a right to act amicably or hostilely with reference to other countries, without any interposition of the state itself. |
| Mr. Grant | Posterity will peruse that eventful history with the same feelings, with the same curiosity; they will mark the injurious policy of Spain, and will then anxiously hurry forward to see whether England did not find an hour of revenge, and how the opportunity was employed. |
| Mr. Granville Vernon | But whether gentlemen are disposed to view these persons as adventurers in pursuit of gain, or as courting active employment in pursuit of glory, it would be in the one case impolitic, and in the other unjust, to restrain them unnecessarily from the attainment of their object.—But it is urged, that the consequence of this mild state of our laws would be injurious to Spain, and that she would therefore be entitled to complain. |
| Mr. Granville Vernon | For instance, the liberty of the press in this country, the freedom of debate in this House, is probably very injurious to Spain, and to every other despotic government; but is she therefore entitled to call upon us to stifle that freedom, and to abrogate that liberty? |
| Mr. Granville Vernon | What favour to her who imposed on us, at the return of peace, as the need of those services, commercial restrictions highly injurious, though, mark again the distinction, not unjust? |
| Mr. Alderman Waithman | He trusted that, however attached a majority of the House might be to the ministers, it would not, under the circumstances of our present situation, sanction a measure so injurious and so unnecessary. |
| Mr. Williams | It had been the policy of master-manufacturers and tradesmen, for some time back, to reduce the price of labour, and he was convinced that these combinations were injurious to the best interests of the community. |
| The Marquis of Lansdowne | feeling, as he did, for the distress of the individuals whom it was the object of this bill to relieve, regretted that it became his public duty to oppose it; but satisfied, as he was, that the principle of it was most injurious to our manufactures, he must resist its further progress. |
| Earl Bathurst | Parliament should be cautious, lest in its anxiety to permit British subjects to fight for the liberties of others, they should adopt or recognize principles injurious to their own. |
| Earl Bathurst | To prohibit assistance to either was the best way of preserving that impartiality, and of preventing acts which might compromise the honour, or be injurious to the interests of the nation. |
| The Earl of Carnarvon | If their lordships should pass the present bill into a law, they would pass a law which would not merely be injurious to liberty in general, but to the interests of Great Britain in particular; and which, at the same time that it would injure us, would not be productive of any ultimate advantage to that power in whose behalf it was intended to operate. |
| Mr. Wilberforce | To himself, however, it proved highly injurious; for the French party at the court of the Nizam were so successful, that he was deprived of a situation from which he was then in the receipt of 9,000l. |
| Mr. Hutchinson | It was not because the existing law had in some few instances been exceeded, that a bill like this was to be adopted, which would be most injurious to the trade and agriculture of Ireland. |
| The Marquis of Tavistock | He remained unshaken in his opinion on this subject, by all that he had seen since he had the honour to have a seat in parliament; and feeling, as he did, so strong an attachment to that cause, he could not help expressing his hope that the friends of reform would see the necessity of agreeing in a plan of moderate reform consistent with the principles of the constitution, and that they would discountenance those wild and visionary theories of reform which were so injurious to the progress of the cause. |
| Sir Francis Burdett | This state of the representation is as derogatory to the dignity of the Crown, as it is injurious to the interests of the people. |
| Sir Francis Burdett | When applied to for the remission of a tax, proved to act in a manner most injurious to the health of the people of Ireland, to such a degree as to have obtained the denomination of the fever tax, which carries contagion throughout the country, and is most particularly destructive amongst that people, whose open doors, and hospitable tempers, expose them peculiarly to its effects; still, however, the right hon. gentleman, who is the most humane man in the world, is obliged to confine himself to the mere expression of his excessive sorrow, that the very virtues of the people of Ireland should augment their sufferings, but that the tax, in the present labouring state of the finances, cannot be dispensed with. |
| Sir James Mackintosh | It is his opinion, that against treason, murder, arson, and crimes of that description, the punishment of death ought to be continued; but forty years' experience convinces him, that with reference to crimes unattended with atrocious or violent circumstances, the existence of that punishment is injurious, rather than beneficial to the community.ߞThe next class of persons examined by the committee consisted of experienced magistrates, who, engaged as they constantly are, in the examination of accused persons previously to their committal, have more direct access to a knowledge of all those circumstances of which it is indispensable to be informed in an inquiry of this nature, than even the judges of our criminal courts, or any other description of individuals. |
| Mr. Bathurst | For many reasons he would not go into his history, and no reason weighed more with him than this, that such a statement might be injurious to his family, some of whom filled respectable situations in life. |
| Mr. Clive | The Petition was then read: It purported to be the petition of Laurence Halloran, doctor of divinity, and sat forth, "That the petitioner, after having devoted a large portion of his life to the service of his country, has in its decline been sentenced to seven years transportation on the sole charge of having defrauded the post office revenue of ten pence upwards of two years ago, by counterfeiting a frank; that this conviction is the first that has taken place under the statute, though by no means the first trespass that has been discovered against it by the officers of that department, as the petitioner is prepared to prove; that the petitioner has already suffered an imprisonment of six months, which has reduced himself and numerous young family to extreme indigence and distress, and which he humbly submits to the feelings of the House has been more than 103 an adequate punishment for the only offence that has been legally substantiated against him; that the petitioner, though in a state of severe indisposition, was forced from the Alonzo hospital ship at Woolwich, in an open boat, to the Baring transport at Purfleet, a distance of ten miles, on the 30th day of November last, to the imminent hazard of his life; and that on his arrival on board the Baring, though extremely exhausted and debilitated, he was locked up for nineteen hours without any kind of sustenance, in a prison cabin, twelve feet square, with a privy (used by a hundred and fifty convicts in the fore part of the ship) in one corner of it; that in a few days twenty other persons, eighteen of them in double irons, were consigned to the same dungeon, where they sleep in cribs, six feet and a half in breadth and five feet and a half in length, into each of which six persons are crowded; that the heat and stench arising from the compression of twenty-one human beings into so confined a space, and with so loathsome an appendage attached, are, even at this season, almost insupportable, and extremely injurious to health, and in a warmer climate must inevitably lead to the extinction of existence by lingering torture; that the petitioner, on the morning of Friday the 11th day of December 1818, clearly witnessed the commission of a detestable and unnatural crime by two of the depraved wretches with whom he has been associated, and who were afterwards distinctly identified by Mr. William Evison; that the petitioner considered it his duty to represent this abominable transaction to lord viscount Sid-mouth, principal secretary of state for the home department, to I. |
| Mr. Grenfell | By means of their exclusive credit, the corporation of the Bank had been enabled to meet the wants of the minister, but they had done so on terms enormous and highly injurious to the country. |
| The Earl of Shaftesbury | presented a Petition on behalf of the Common Council of the city of London against the renewal of the above act, and strongly expressive of the petitioners opinion as to the injustice and injurious tendency of its operation. |
| Mr. Tierney | It could not be denied, that nothing could be more injurious to a country at all times, but especially in time of peace, than great fluctuations in the public funds: yet there was a set of men, intimately connected with government, who liked nothing better than such fluctuations. |
| Mr. Alderman Heygate | The hon. member congratulated the House on the proposed inquiry; and hoped that the committee would consist of members who would lay aside all personal and political animosities; that they would consider the subject in all its bearings with calmness and impartiality, that by their labours the public mind would be enlightened on questions that so intimately concerned the public interests; that the extent of circulation would be determined, and an end put to those rapid and extensive fluctuations, which, though beneficial and profitable to some, were injurious and calamitous to the great body of the people. |
| Mr. Hart Davis | The petitioners stated, "that they have heard with much apprehension that the design is entertained of proposing in parliament the resumption by the Bank of England of its cash payments; the petitioners have the most entire confidence in the resources of the National Bank, and that its issues are fully warranted by the property which it holds in deposit; and that they are firmly persuaded that if this measure shall be forced upon the ║ 277 country before it shall by a favourable state of its foreign exchanges be fully prepared for its reception, not only the finances and revenue of the state must suffer, but even the stability of the Bank itself be endangered by the exportation of its bullion, and the depreciation of the property which it holds as the security of its issues; the petitioners conceive also, that the present is a period peculiarly hazardous for an experiment of so important a nature, when loans of unprecedented magnitude are in progress of payment in Europe, and when the exchange with both the continents is greatly against this country; the petitioners confidently anticipate that as the present state of our foreign exchanges may be justly attributed to causes which, although quite adequate to the effect, are not in themselves necessarily permanent, that the period may reasonably be expected to arrive at which a resumption of cash payments may be made with safety, and without inconvenience; awaiting then this period, the situation of the country can only be rendered alarming by a premature recurrence to measures which the petitioners are satisfied must cramp the commercial intercourse of England with foreign countries, contract its trade and manufactures, and be most injurious to its best interests; the petitioners therefore most humbly pray, that the House will reject every proposal which may be made for an hasty and premature adoption of such a measure." |
| Lord Castlereagh | On this account his lordship did not feel authorized to propose any remuneration to such of the king's domestics whose aid was not now required, fearing that it might be drawn into an injurious precedent; but this distinction was to be taken, that the Regent was not now acting as the successor to the throne, but administering the functions of royalty, in consequence of the indisposition of his majesty; and that although his Royal Highness had taken several of the king's servants into his employment, some remained unemployed, for whom it was proposed to make provision without trenching upon the precedent already alluded to, and that was by acting upon the principle of the legislature in 1812, namely, by enabling the custos personæ to grant such provision to superannuated servants, or to the widows or families of those deceased, as his majesty in his benevolence and bounty would have been likely to allow had he been competent to act. |
| Earl Grosvenor | The noble lord had complained of the injurious effects of heat in cotton factories; but it was to be recollected that a sensibility to a high temperature was only relative. |
| Lord Castlereagh | The delegation at such high powers, as he had before remarked, ought not to be resorted to but on important emergencies: most assuredly an annual appointment would be highly impolitic and injurious. |
| Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald | Whatever might have been the operation of the act, the House and the country would, he had no doubt, at least, do justice to the motives of those by whom it was introduced, to their anxiety for the public interests, and their desire to put down abuses which were disgraceful to the laws and injurious to the morals and the welfare of the Irish people. |
| Mr. Curwen | But this principle had been pushed to an unwise extent in the country, and its operation had been productive of injurious consequences. |
| Mr. Bennet | It was to be lamented, indeed, that those structures should be persisted in, as they contributed to consequences so injurious to the health and morals of youth. |
| Mr. Bennet | It was most injurious to the colony, and he was ready to prove the fact at the bar of the House. |
| Mr. Goulburn | The government was the great consumer, and naturally felt an anxiety, which was surely laudable, to procure a sufficient foreign supply, which of course was injurious to the interest of the resident agriculturist. |
| Mr. Tierney | He did not impute it to design so much as to habit; but the right hon. gentleman had a knack of exaggerating and misrepresenting, that was sometimes injurious to his own cause; when, for instance, he talked of his hon. and learned friend standing on the pier of Sheerness, and telling his companion that a cargo of kings, lords, and commons, was just on the eve of exportation for Botany Bay, a laugh for the moment might be excited, but at the expense only of the right hon. gentleman. |
| Mr. Alderman Waithman | This law was, however, not only injurious to credit, but destructive of the whole morality of trade. |
| Mr. Peter Moore | thought, that as a charge injurious to the character of the hon. member had: been brought against him, he ought to have an opportunity of clearing away the imputation; and he therefore conceived that an inquiry into the circumstances of the case should be ordered. |
| The Bishop of Chester | Urged, he said, by a regard for the temporal as well as spiritual concerns of a great body of people in his diocese, he had, since the agitation of the question last year, made it a point to visit all the cotton factories within his reach, and be was satisfied that the length of time which the children were obliged to labour, was not only injurious to their health, but destructive to their lives. |
| Mr. Hutchinson | He could assure the hon. member, had he conceived that there were any words in that petition injurious or offensive to the House, he should not have presumed to appear here to move for the liberation of the petitioner. |
| Mr. Masterton Ure | And here it was important to observe, that by acceding to the hon. baronet's motion, the House would enable those who had proved themselves so unworthy of being electors to repeat those acts of corruption so disgraceful to themselves and injurious to the public; while by postponing the writ it would be liable to the charge of depriving the bona fide electors of Penryn of their due share in the representation of the empire: for it should be observed, that those electors who, by the resolution of the committee, [738 were found to have been bribed, would, notwithstanding that resolution, be entitled to vote, till they were convicted in a court of law, or disqualified by act of parliament. |
| Lord Holland | That act, he trusted, would admit of explanation; but of all the courses which we could pursue, that would be the most dangerous to our empire in India, and the most injurious to our character among the nations of Europe, which would seem to approve of it as it appeared in our present state of information. |
| Mr. Littleton | Of this he was sure, that an alteration of the nature intended could not be made in the existing laws, without producing a most injurious revulsion in trade. |
| Sir C. Mordaunt | He gave every credit to the hon. alderman, to the gallant officer, and to those who acted with them, for the purity of their intentions; but he trusted they never would be able to induce ministers to take up a question which would be most injurious to the country. |
| Sir M. W. Ridley | He was hostile to the plan not from any private feeling, but because his public duty dictated to him the impropriety of sanctioning a measure which he believed would have very injurious effects. |
| Sir James Mackintosh | Among other subjects, it may be a question whether the laws for the protection of the property called game, have not created a clandestine traffic, highly injurious to the morals of the labouring classes. |
| Sir James Mackintosh | The anecdotes which I have heard of this shameful and injurious facility, I am almost ashamed to repeat. |
| Sir James Mackintosh | This most singular, and most injurious opposition of the enactments of the legislature, and the enforcement of those enactments, repeatedly attracted the attention of a distinguished individual, who unites in himself every quality that could render him one of the greatest ornaments of this House, and whom, as he is no longer a member, I may be permitted to name, I mean sir William Grant—a man who can never be mentioned by those who know him without the expression of their admiration—a man who is an honour, not merely to the profession to which he has been exalted, but to the age in which he lives—a man who is at once the greatest master of reason and of the power of enforcing it—whose sound judgment is accompanied by the most perspicuous comprehension—whose views, especially on all subjects connected with legislation, or the administration of the law, are directed by the profoundest wisdom—whom no one ever approaches without feeling his superiority, and who only wants the two vices of ostentation and ambition (vices contemned by the retiring simplicity and noble modesty of his nature) to render his high talents and attainments more popularly attractive—that great man (for such he really is) has given us his authority for the assertion, that the principle of the criminal law is diametrically opposite to its practice. |
| Sir James Mackintosh | To correct this anomaly, so injurious, and so subversive of the great purposes of criminal jurisprudence, is the object which I have in view. |
| Sir James Mackintosh | Nothing in my mind would be more imprudent than to establish an undeviating rule of law—a rule that in many cases would have a more injurious and unjust operation than can easily be imagined. |
| Sir James Mackintosh | Nothing, indeed, can in my opinion be more injurious than the frequency with which the sentence of death is pronounced from the judgment seat, with all the solemnities prescribed on such an occasion, when it is evident, even to those against whom the punishment is denounced, that it will never be carried into effect. |
| Mr. J. Smith | Yet it had appeared in evidence before the bankrupt committee, that no offence was were common or more injurious than that of fraudulent bankruptcy; but that creditors, however aggrieved, could not bring themselves to inflict the punishment of death. |
| Earl Grosvenor | In that of the climbing boys, actual inhumanity was practised, but in that of the cotton-spinners, no objection of that nature was made, and their employment, however injurious it might eventually prove to health, was not accompanied by positive cruelty. |
| The Chancellor of the Exchequer | In a case where the punishment must fall on the innocent as well as the guilty, the House ought to pause before they decided on taking the course which had [912 been recommended to them, He could not conceive a more injurious precedent than that which would be established if the House were to appoint one committee, as had been proposed to try the decision of another with the same witnesses, to examine with precisely, the same means of obtaining information. |
| Mr. Lushington | felt himself bound to oppose the motion, from a conviction that it would be injurious to the individuals concerned to have their names disclosed, and equally injurious to the public by a great number of clerks being taken from their ordinary duties to draw up the returns. |
| Mr. Lushington | felt himself bound to oppose the motion, from a conviction that it would be injurious to the individuals concerned to have their names disclosed, and equally injurious to the public by a great number of clerks being taken from their ordinary duties to draw up the returns. |
| Sir Lowry Cole | He must then say, that, however objectionable and injurious the system formerly was, yet he did not think the British army could be kept in its present state of discipline, if it were wholly removed. |
| The Earl of Lauderdale | said, that the equalization called for would be one of the most injurious and unjust acts that could be committed. |
| Mr. Hutchinson | The petitioners appealed to the justice, the humanity, and the sound policy of that House in soliciting the re-repeal of a tax, the existence of which had been found extremely injurious to the health of the people of Cork. |
| Mr. Hutchinson | But this tax was found exceedingly injurious, not only in Cork, but throughout all Ireland. |
| Mr. Hutchinson | The injurious effects of this tax to the health of the people, he could state from his own observation. |
| Sir G. Cockburn | Speaking from the experience which he had had during the twelve months he had belonged to the board, he would say he was sure that any alteration in its present constitution would be injurious to the interests of the country. |
| Mr. Wilberforce | Even now, when the existing game laws, so opposite to every principle of personal liberty, so contrary to all our notions of private right, so injurious, so arbitrary in their operation, that the sense of the greater part of mankind was in determined hostility to them; even now, when these were in full force, a system of poaching prevailed to a greater extent than ever. |
| Mr. Bankes | If it were said, that the game laws were injurious and productive of vice and misery, let them be abolished. |
| Mr. Lambton | 14s.; and that the delivery of eleven copies of only one work, Dodwell's 'Scenes and Monuments of Greece,' would, at the trade sale price, be about 275l.; the petitioners will not intrude on the attention of the House, by stating the various injurious effects on arts and literature in general, which this delivery is stated, in such evidence, to have produced, as well as on the property of the owners and authors of books; but they earnestly state, that if the grievance is manifestly great on high-priced books, it is not less individually severe in its general amount on the usual publications of the year; and the petitioners humbly submit, that the increasing custom of printing English books abroad is an additional urgency to the petitioners to solicit the House to remove from them the burthen of delivering these eleven copies, which so manifestly tends to increase the price of English publications; the petitioners therefore most humbly pray, that the House will be pleased to grant them such relief as to the demand and delivery of the eleven copies of books for the libraries in the said act mentioned, as in its wisdom shall seem most expedient, and more especially, by repealing the clauses of the said act which enjoins the delivery of the said eleven copies, excepting one copy to the British Museum." |
| Mr. Stuart Wortley | presented a petition from Sheffield, setting forth "That the petitioners being decidedly of opinion, from the declarations of scripture, and the voice of experience, that whatever is at variance with strict morality and pure religion must be inimical to the prosperity of any kingdom, and being convinced that the state lottery is in a great degree destructive of both, they have no hesitation in affirming, that the continuance of it must be injurious to the 1115 best interests of the state; that the petitioners are fully persuaded that these sentiments are likewise those of almost all reflecting, people, as well as of a majority of the members of the legislature, because when, the act for the continuance of the state lottery was passed in the last session of parliament, not a single argument was adduced in its favour, the necessity for it alone being insisted upon; that the petitioners were happy to learn from the report made, on the 8th day of February last, to the House, on the finances of the country, that the aforesaid plea of necessity is now entirely obviated; that the petitioners believe that the loss to the state, even in the revenue, from the pernicious effects of the state lottery on the morals and habits of the lower classes is far beyond any profits which can arise from it; that the petitioners have great apprehensions, since banks for the savings of the poor, under the special sanction of the legislature, are become so general, that if the state lottery be suffered to continue, its pernicious consequences will be much increased, and that the effects of the saving banks will be rendered frequently prejudicial; it is even probable, that emissaries will be employed by the lottery offices to traverse the country for the purpose of personally tempting the depositors to speculate in the state lottery, and these will be ready to insinuate, that the legislature has encouraged the establishment of such banks for the purpose of enabling them so to do; that the petitioners moreover are of opinion, that before the country be farther called upon to establish and support national schools for the education of the children of the poor, and to build free churches for the religious instruction of the lower classes, the state lottery, which is so directly and strongly opposed to the success of such institutions, ought to be abolished; that the petitioners cannot but feel and acknowledge, that the Almighty hath not dealt so with any nation as he hath done with this, having exalted her to unexampled riches, and honours, and power; and that therefore we should, as a people, be wanting, in gratitude to him, and be deserving of the most exemplary chastisement, were we to continue legislatively to sanction and enforce a, measure which is now acknowledged on all hands to be offensive in the sight of Him who is of purer eyes than to, behold iniquity; the petitioners do therefore most earnestly and respect- [1116 fully solicit the House, that no bill in future may pass which shall have for its object the raising of money for the public service by way of lottery. |
| Mr. Western | It was a system most injurious to the poor themselves, and rendered the wages which they received, even with the addition of the poor-rates, a much more inadequate reward than they would otherwise obtain. |
| Lord King | He considered this a most odious measure, and most injurious to the royal family. |
| Mr. Sinclair | The anxiety and alarm, which even the unauthenticated rumour that such a measure was in contemplation, had excited in every part of the kingdom, and which particularly prevailed in the manufacturing districts of Scotland, had extended to the distant county, which he had the honour to represent.—He was happy to find that his own sentiments were confirmed by those pf the petitioners—and should, if necessary, give every opposition in his power to a tax so cruel and impolitic; a tax which would press so severely upon all classes of the community, but especially upon the indigent and industrious—a tax which, by increasing the price, would necessarily diminish the consumption of many important articles of manufacture and would thus prove very injurious to the commerce and revenue of the country. |
| Mr. Mackenzie | Whether the principle of desuetude was originally good or bad, it was now too late to inquire; it was a principle interwoven with the whole theory and practice of the law, and could not be abrogated without producing the most injurious effects. |
| Mr. D. W. Harvey | He was the responsible party, and could give a negative or affirmative to a proposition for compromise, and hence arose expenses that were most injurious and grievous to the country. |
| Lord Archibald Hamilton | If he had no other authority than this, he would say, that his majesty's ministers had done what was injurious to the country, and disgraceful to themselves. |
| Lord Archibald Hamilton | Thus, it would be seen, that this self-electing system was as tyrannical and oppressive to individuals, as it was injurious and insulting to the community which it pretended to regulate and to serve. |
| The Lord Advocate | If this statute, then, had been so injurious to those classes of the community, it was impossible to doubt that it must, during that reign, have been repealed; but instead of being repealed, its provisions were confirmed, and so far extended, that a statute was passed, absolutely requiring, that four of the old council should be continued in the new. |
| Mr. Hume | It was a sacrifice of the best interests of that large community, by his majesty's ministers, to retain their political influence, which they were afraid would be lost; and it showed in a great degree the disposition of his majesty's government to exercise arbitrary and despotic power, to answer their purposes, by however injurious and cruel measures that might be obtained.—He had no hesitation in declaring it illegal, arbitrary, and unjust, and thought it behoved this House to afford redress to the people of Aberdeen, to watch that disposition in the government, to arbitrary and unconstitutional power at the expense of the rights and welfare of the people. |
| Dr. Phillimore | To these injurious and discouraging duties might, in a great degree, be ascribed the misfortune of this country being for many years precluded from the enjoyment of a commerce properly belonging to herself, but actually beneficial to her neighbours alone. |
| Mr. Davenport | It originated in a blind policy, and was in its operation as injurious to the poor, as it was discouraging to agriculture, and destructive of the fisheries. |
| Colonel Barry | said, that the system of still fines was injurious to morals, and a great hardship to an innocent population. |
| The Chancellor of the Exchequer | He deprecated vacillation as injurious to the revenue, but thought that much benefit might be derived from the encouragement of licensed distilleries on a small scale. |
| Earl Grey | In supporting the authority of the government, their lordships, he hoped, would not so far lose sight of the principles of the constitution as to sanction any precedent hostile to public liberty, and therefore injurious to the safety of the state. |
| Earl Grey | He had, in 'vain, opposed some of those measures which had proved most injurious both to the character of parliament, and to that of the family on the throne. |
| Earl Grey | "Humbly to express to his Royal Highness our reprobation of the attempts which have been made to persuade the suffering classes of the people to seek relief from their distress in schemes injurious to themselves, dangerous to the public quiet, and inconsistent with the security of the constitution, which it is our duty and determination to maintain against every species of encroachment and attack. |
| Lord Erskine | Supposing, however, that the great numbers assembled, and the banners displaying the wishes of this multitude for a reform visionary and impracticable, had rendered the meeting in the honest judgment of the magistrates unsafe and injurious to the public peace, and therefore fit to be dispersed, was not the mode of accomplishing it most clearly prescribed by the laws, and completely and safely practicable? |
| The Duke of Athol | He was one of those who thought themselves bound to call the attention of their lordships to the state of the lower classes, in order to save them from the specious delusions of those demagogues, who were disseminating among them the injurious principles of radical reform. |
| Mr. Tierney | Thus, that which thirty, forty, or fifty years ago, might be thought a wholesome, or at at least a secure course, was now both injurious and dangerous. |
| Mr. Tierney | He then read his amendment, as follows: 87 "To assure his royal highness, that, called together at a season when unexampled distress and extraordinary agitation prevail in some of the most populous districts of the kingdom, we will immediately proceed to take into our most serious consideration the various matters contained in his royal highness's gracious speech from the throne: "Humbly to express to his royal highness our reprobation of the attempts which have been made to persuade the suffering classes of the people to seek relief from their distress in schemes injurious to themselves, dangerous to the public quiet, and inconsistent with the security of the constitution, which it is our duty and determination to maintain against every species of encroachment or attack: "To represent to his royal highness that while we thus declare our determined resolution firmly to uphold the just authority of the laws, we feel that we are called upon by a sense of duty, so to conduct ourselves as to satisfy the people that their complaints will at all times receive from us that just attention, and their rights that ready protection, which is indispensable to their safety and freedom: "That this seems to us more particularly necessary in order to maintain that confidence in the public institutions of the country, which constitutes the best safeguard of all law and government: "That we have seen with deep regret the events which took place at Manchester on the 16th of August last; and that, without pronouncing any opinion on the circumstances which occurred on that melancholy occasion, we feel that they will demand our earliest attention in order to dissipate the alarm to which they have given birth, by a diligent and impartial inquiry, which may show that the measures of extraordinary severity, then resorted to, were the result of the most urgent and unavoidable necessity; or prove that an important constitutional privilege cannot be violated, and the lives of his majesty's subjects sacrificed, with impunity." |
| Mr. Bennet | He (Mr. Bennet) would not assert that alarm might not be created by the meetings of large bodies of the people; but this he would: say, that nothing could be more degrading to the character of the country, or more injurious to individuals who were employed in administering justice in those parts of the kingdom where these meetings were held, than to declare that assemblies of persons, consisting of he knew not how many thousands, were formed merely for purposes of plunder and devastation. |
| Mr. Bennet | They held opinions which he certainly detested—opinions that were injurious to the best interests of the country; but he believed they adhered to them from honest and conscientious feelings; and he felt that he had no more right to put them down by force, than he had to. |
| Mr. Canning | —"That the House express their reprobation of the attempts which have been made to persuade the suffering classes of the people to seek relief from their dis- 195 tress in schemes injurious to themselves, dangerous to the public quiet, and inconsistent with the security of the constitution" Thus, then, it appeared that those exalted individuals shared the honours of the hustings with men, whom they considered as entertaining projects "dangerous to the public quiet, and inconsistent with the security of the constitution;" and that with such men they combined their votes on another question, throwing entirely out of their view that by which the public quiet and the constitution were, in their opinion, endangered. |
| Mr. Wilberforce | This spirit was created by the impartiality as well as the readiness with which justice could always be obtained in the country; and therefore to institute an inquiry into 320 their conduct would be to cast a slur upon them, which would be productive of most injurious consequences. |
| Lord Sidmouth rose | It was the great character of a free press that its productions were not interfered with before publication; but that when the publication took place, if it should be considered to be injurious to morals, to religion, or to the good order of society, it then became liable to prosecution. |
| Mr. Tierney | He admitted it; he meant to mark his opinion decisively, that those schemes were dangerous to the constitution, injurious to the public quiet, and most of all injurious to those who were deluded by them. |
| Mr. Tierney | He admitted it; he meant to mark his opinion decisively, that those schemes were dangerous to the constitution, injurious to the public quiet, and most of all injurious to those who were deluded by them. |
| Lord Erskine | Why then, my lords, did not his majesty's ministers, even supposing them to have been justified, which I deny, in sanctioning the acts of the Manchester magistrates in the Prince Regent's name, why did not they in the speech to be delivered from the throne, introduce the strongest expressions of sorrow for the melancholy sufferings which unquestionably had taken place, from whatever cause they proceeded.—The higher orders undoubtedly well know, who are acquainted with the forms of parliament, that the Prince Regent's speech no more proceeds from himself than from the porter at Carlton-house; but the lower orders do not know this, and it is noto- 448 rious that many injurious remarks have proceeded from this omission, and that his Royal Highness may thereby have appeared to the multitude as dead to those humane and good natured feelings which have been his Royal Highness's characteristic when occasions have called them forth. |
| My Lords | Both are, as it is now generally acknowledged, prejudicial to the public welfare, though the latter no doubt is by far the most injurious to our labouring population. |
| My Lords | I know of no policy more injurious, none more dangerous to the public peace, than that of exciting, in moments of pressure, expectations which we cannot realize. |
| My Lords | Unless the advantage of change be indisputable, the very proposal of change is in itself injurious. |
| The Earl of Liverpool | How injurious so ever he 495 supposed that the views of the noble mover would prove, if adopted by parliament, he was ready to render him that justice which the noble marquis, he knew would on his part, give him for purity of intention. |
| The Earl of Liverpool | The noble earl said, on the first night of the session, that he objected to the whole proceedings of ministers, as injurious to the interests of the country: from the noble marquis they had heard a different opinion, for he had said he did not doubt that some of the measures proposed by his majesty's ministers would be beneficial to the country. |
| Mr. W. Lamb | He was apprehensive that coercive measures, in the present state of the country, would prove injurious, and was afraid that more meetings like that at Manchester might be expected, if something was not done to conciliate and tranquillize the public mind. |
| Mr. Smyth | This was a clause which was calculated to produce extremely injurious consequences; inasmuch as it might affect ignorant persons, and in all events left the decision of the character of the meeting to the caprice of a single individual. |
| The Earl of Liverpool | Such delay, if granted at all, appeared to him likely to prove less injurious in cases of superior atrocity, because in them the person of the offender was secured. |
| Lord Erskine | The law officers of the crown had already the amplest means in their hands for the suppression of all injurious publications. |
| Lord Erskine | This was most clearly proved in the total suppression of another species of libel formerly most destructively prevalent, and equally injurious to morals as blasphemy itself. |
| Mr. Alderman Waithman | He thought them dangerous, impolitic, foolish beyond description, and particularly injurious to rational reform. |
| Mr. Perceval | said, he was fully convinced that the bill would be attended with the 799 most evil consequences; that it would have an immediate and injurious tendency, and on this account he was called upon to oppose those with whom he generally acted. |
| Mr. Perceval | It was said that it was a dangerous right—a right that might be injurious to its possessors; but when we took even from the child the sword by which he might be wounded, and supplied its place by a leaden weapon, it exhibited some feeling of indignation at the cheat which was practised. |
| Mr. Perceval | The people of England had too much understanding to be thus imposed upon by those who affected to deprive them of their rights, under the pretence that they would be injurious. |
| Lord Castlereagh | The ordinary practice was, for the sheriff' of the county to convene public meetings; and it was now proposed to associate with him a certain number of the magistrates of the county, in whom a confidence might be reposed, for the preservation of the peace, and the suppression of those acts which might be injurious to the public welfare. |
| Lord Castlereagh | However disposed he might be to accede to an inquiry, the object of which was to ascertain facts, and to discover more clearly and intelligibly the causes of distress in the manufacturing districts, he must guard his concurrence from any assent to what would in the event be so injurious a proceeding—a proceeding that would go to try over again, every subject of local agitation and private dispute which could be revived in the present irritated state of public feeling. |
| Mr. Philips | There was no doubt that the present state of the manufacturing districts had produced effects injurious to the commerce and prosperity of the country; but the evil, he apprehended, was to be met only by natural means, and could not be removed by legislative: measures. |
| The Lord Advocate | He should offer no exaggerated statement to the House because he conceived statements of that character to be highly injurious. |
| The Earl of Harrowby | If, therefore, the words of the clause should stand exactly as they did at present, no injurious consequences, would follow. |
| Lord Erskine | It was true, that transportation, properly applied, was a useful punishment: impurities, which if suffered to remain, might lead to contagion arid death, should be put forth; so should persons dangerously injurious to the country; but was it right to send them forth to a new colony, to poison the hearts and understandings of an infant state? |
| Earl Grosvenor | He knew it might be said, that the law, if found unnecessary or injurious, might be repealed; but it was difficult to get a law repealed on which the courts had been acting as permanent. |
| Mr. Williams | But, above all, he conjured them not to adopt measures injuriously operative oil the whole community, when it was confessedly only a part of that community that ought to be subject to them. |
| Lord John Russell rose | But he has no sooner shown him self attentive to the interests of this city and a warm friend to the rights of the subject, than his appearance excites every where good humour and applause.—We have been very lately told that education, which ought to be a blessing, has been injurious to the population of the manufacturing districts. |
| Mr. Ricardo | But that House should look to the ultimate good, and give notice, that after a certain number of years, such an injurious system of legislation must terminate. |
| Earl Grosvenor | They ought to take care that neither the ultra-zealous loyalist, on the one hand, nor the pestilent reformer, on the other, should be allowed to force parliament to the adoption of measures injurious to liberty. |
| The Earl of Westmoreland | It was clear then that the proposed inquiry could not have been gone into, as the result in either case must be so injurious to public justice, and however he disapproved of the conduct of Mr. Hunt or Mr. Harrison, he could not but wish as an Englishman that they or others should enjoy the benefit of a fair trial without any of that undue prejudice against them which was too likely to result from the authoritative declaration, of a parliamentary committee. |
| The Earl of Liverpool | Did not every person who had ever looked into the principles of political economy, say that a more ruinous doctrine could not be established than that which would make government support the poor of the country—that the poor-rates would be the greatest of evils, were they not under the superintendence of local interests, by which their injurious tendency was at least diminished? |
| Mr. Denman | The more respectable and wealthy part of the booksellers might not feel them; but they were decidedly injurious to the industrious and less wealthy. |
| The Chancellor of the Exchequer | said, that even after the experience of the extent to which malignity and absurdity could go in the propagation of reports injurious to the administration, he had not been prepared for such a rumour as that alluded to by the hon. gentleman. |
| Lord Castlereagh | He was even 1475 ready to admit that, in a commercial country like our own, nothing was more injurious than to lay restrictions upon capital. |
| Mr. Tierney | If, 1515 as he believed it would, it should prove Injurious, the noble lord would then have the opportunity, as he had no doubt he would have the inclination, to relieve the country from its operation. |
| Sir James Mackintosh | It was injurious to those who were almost innocent, and advantageous to those who were in the highest degree guilty. |
| Mr. Brougham | Yet, because the editor of that base publication had lent a violent, though injurious support to the measures of government, he was sent out (not banished) but sent out to represent the government, as a consul in New England too, a place where purity of character was esteemed as much as in any part of the world! |
Injurious weeds and the law | Why “harmful weeds” misrepresents the law