THE ALIEN BILL.

Lyttelton Times, Volume IX, Issue 580, 26 May 1858, Page 3

THE ALIEN BILL.

In pursuance of the promise in our last issue we abstract from the debate on the Alien Bill in the House of Lords, the manly and dignified speech of Lord Derby on the 4th March, as it furnishes a spirited epitome of the arguments principally advanced, and the independent position assumed by a large proportion of the aristocracy of England.

The Earl of Derby, said, My Lords—There is a subject upon which I certainly expected her Majesty's Government would have said something upon the present occasion. It cannot be denied that the recent atrocious attempt to assassinate the Emperor of the French has produced in Prance a most painful feeling with respect to this country. (Hear, hear.) It cannot be denied either that accusations have been made against us, utterly unfounded, indeed, but which the malice of the enemies of this country in Prance have deeply impressed upon the minds of a susceptible people; these have led to the use of language which, if proceeding from any quarter entitled to respect, would be very little calculated to excite a favourable feeli.ig here. Certainly we have set to France, not very long ago, through no less a person than the First Lord of the Treasury, an example of not very dignified bluster (" Hear," and a laugh), which has found in that country imitators who have even surpassed the noble viscount. But Ido not think the imprudent and disgraceful language which has been held upon this subject should induce us to shut our eyes to the fact that these accusations, however unjust, and these imputations, however unfounded, have had the effect of alienating from the people of this country the friendly regards of a considerable portion of the population of France, and I think that the earliest opportunity ought to have been taken by the Government to disabuse the minds of the people of that country, and to explain to them the real state of what is called, popularly, the refugee question. If there is one offence which is utterly revolting and repugnant to the feelings of every Englishman, if there be one crime that is looked upon with universal abhorence, the perpetrators Qf which can hope for no sympathy or protection, it is the crime of secret assassination. I am convinced that to any man with an English heart to whom a proposal should be made to get rid of even his bitterest enemy by means of secret assassination the first impulse would be to knock down the man proposing so base a crime. But when the offence is not to be committed against a bitter foe, but against one who has proved himself to be a firm friend of this country, one whose life I do not hesitate to say is of infinite value and importance to the friendly relations between this country and France, as well as the maintenance of peace and good order throughout Europe. (Hear, hear.) Then the crime is of still greater atrocity, especially when the assassins, in their eager recklessness to destroy the object of tlreir enmity, do not hesitate to sacrifice the lives of unoffending spectators, nor to imperil the life of an innocent woman; who had done no harm to them or to any one. Such circumstances, I say, have increased in this country the natural feelings of indignation at so cowardly a crime. It makes the blood of an honest Englishman boil to find that any one is so deluded, so infatuated, so | embittered by hostility to this country as to be persuaded into belief that Englishmen, forsooth, connived at and sanctioned such an atrocity. (Hear, hear.) Undoubtedly, it may be said that the language in which certain persons in France have indulged deprives them of the right of seeking from this country any explanation of our conduct or our feelings; but Ido not think it can be a matter of indifference that there should be, from a want of perfect apprehension of facts, an absence of friendly feeling—not between the two Governments, for I belive that is not the case, —but between the people of the two countries. Now, as to the recent most lamentable and most disgraceful attempt, all I can say is that under no .conceivable circumstances* could the slightest charge of negligence or want .of watchfulness be brought against this country. Admit for a moment—which I never can—that it was the duty of this country to drive from our shores men who might be suspected of entertaining hostile intentions towards foreign sovereigns; still, even with that admission, I venture to say that the most rigid enfoecement of any law would not have enabled us to interfere with the chief conspirator while residing here. What was Pierri? He was a man who for some years had been living at Birmingham as a peaceful citizen, earning his livelihood by the honest pursuit of a teacher of languages; he was not known to belong to any dangerous conspiracy, nor to be mixed up with any one engaged in secret plots. As long as Pierri remained in Birmingham he was perfectly safe and inoffensive—neither the object of suspicion nor of danger. But then it has been said, "Why did you allow him to leave Birmingham and go to France?" It was no part of our business to prevent him; we are not to perform the office o

gaolers. (Cheers.) In this country every man is free to go and come when, where, and how he pleases, as long as he is guilty of no offence against our laws. But I must say if any lesson is to be drawn from the manner in which the late unhappy attempt became so nearly succesful, and was only baffled by a special interposition of Providence, that lesson is the utter jnutility of the vexatious system of passports. (Hear, hear.) It has long been the rule at the Foreign office of this country only to grant passports to our own subjects. The danger arising from Pjerri arose, not from his presence in England, but when he landed in France. How did he obtain the means of getting there;? He obtained a passport to enter Belgium, not with the connivance or assistance of the British Government, but, I believe, one signed by the French Vice^ Consul in Birmingham. Well, he proceeded to Belgium, and, I believe, the police of that country, who knew him, gave notice to the French Government that he was in Belgium and upon his way to Paris. To Paris he went, and there, and not in Birmingham, he remained for a week completing his arrangements for the medidated crime, and employed in consultation with his co-conspirators. The plot might have been devised in England, but in the French capital it was carried into exeeution-^-and carried into execution, too, by persons who had arrived there by means of passports furnished to them by a French Consul, and who conducted their proceedings in the very face of that which we have been accustomed to regard as a most vigilant and active police, but which we must, I think, now consider to be a body upon which no great credit is reflected by the circumstance that ""they permitted this atrocious attempt at assassination to reach a point so near to success. (Hear, hear.) So far as the case of Pierri is concerned, therefore, I maintain that whatever may be the state of the law in this country there was no neglect upon our part, and that we had it in our power to take no step which could afford to the Emperor of the French that security which I think he had a right to expect, from the exercise of greater caution upon the part of his own consul in the granting of passports, and from the vigilance of his police. (Hear, hear.) Passing for a moment, however, from this individual case, I think it my duty frankly to state that it is perfectly well known that there are in this country men who entertain the most dangerous designs. It has, nevertheless, my Lords, at no time been the policy of England—and I hope it never will be—to punish men for mere designs and intentions unaccompanied by any indications of action, and the existence of which is unsustained by any producible evidence. (Hear, hear.) There. are many fereigners who are here certainly not in accordance with our desire, some not even in conformity with their own wish, but because they have no other resting place for the soles of their feet; and those men do, no doubt, consult and combine together with the view of carrying into effect schemes the most dangerous and the most criminal. So long, however, as they go no further than the forming of mere projects our laws are somewhat jealous of any interference taking place in their regard. But it would, my lords, be idle to endeavour to conceal to ourselves that it has been sought to convey to the sensitive minds of the French people, the impression that such persons as I have described are kept here as it were in the leash, under the guardianship of England, to be let loose at any moment at which our Government may feel disposed for its own objects to create political disturbances in other states. ' 2^ow, I cannot but deem it i-ight that, under these circumstances, the people of this country as well as of France should be undceived, and should be' made aware of the real position in which matters stand. I repeat, then, in the presence of my noble friend, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, that there are in England men who entertain those dangerous designs to which I have adverted. I go farther, and assert that those men are known to, and so far as our repugnance to any system of surveillance will per-* niit, are under the observation of the police. I must, however, add that, so far from its being true that we keep those men here for the purpose of plotting against the lives of foreign sovereigns, it has at all times been considered the bounden duty of the Government of this country, if any such dangerous designs came to its knowledge, to give the sovereign whose life may in consequence be endangered the most 1 timely warning, so that he might be placed upon his guard against these criminal machinations. (Hear, hear). I will, however, moreover, venture to express it as my positive conviction that the Emperor of the French lias upon more than one occasion been mainly indebted for his safety to the friendly intimation which has been conveyed to him of the dangerous designs of persons such as those whom we are now charged with harbouring for the purpose of instigating them to the commission of the most heinous of crimes. I think it is but right it should be known to the French people that such men are watched by the Government of England; and that, so far as the laws of the country permit us to go, their nefarious designs are counteracted by the vigilance of a police which, although it may not make so much noise, is, I believe, quite as effective as the police of France. I also deem it right that her Majesty's Government should seize upon the earliest opportunity to give expression to the views they entertain upon this i subject, inasmuch as it is one with regard to I which a great deal of misapprehension calculated j if not removed to do mischief prevails; and, inj asmuch as it is one to which public attention j has of late been very earnestly directed, I thin It j it is of the utmost importance that we should ! hear from her Majesty's Ministers, without delay, whether they intend to take any steps in consequence of the atrocious attempt which lias just been made upon the life of the French Emperor—any steps which, even though they should afford no effectual security for the protection of the lives of foreign sovereigns, may serve at least to indicate the good-will towards France which exists upon the part of the English people, and which may show that we are prepared to do everything which may fairly be expected at our hands. (Hear, hear.) Now, my Lords, I say without hesitation that, not for the security of the Sovereign of France, or of all theSovereigns of Europe twenty times over, would

consent to violate in the slightest degree that

sacred right of asylum to foreigners by which oiu history has always been characterised. (Cheers.J ((Cheers.)) Of the advantage of that asylum men of all political shade of opinion have ever freely partaken. By many of them it has, 1 regret to say, been most shamefully and ungratefully abused (hear, hear); and I do not hesitate to add that such men are guilty of a serious crime against the world and against humanity, inasmuch as they imperil, by the suspicions which their conduct raises against her, the land which in the hour of their distress are held out to them—and which holds out to all who are similarly situate—a place of refuge and protection. .(Hear, hear.) But not because of the crimes of those people, nor because ot any consequences which may flow from them, would I for one, consent to destroy, or even to relax, that privilege of asylum which England affords to all those who do not act in direct disobedience to her laws. (Hear, hear.) There is also another measure which I am sure no Government would propose, and which, even if they did, I feel con»vmce'd noTarliament would sanction,—that is, that any man should be punished upon mere suspicion in this country, and not upon evidence brought against him in the face of day. (Hear, heart.) If, my Lords, the people of .France are unreasonable enough to expect such a sacrifice of feeling and principle upon the part of the English nation, they are lamentably mistakenv(cheers), and, however I may ferret that illwill should for a moment be engendered between them and us, all such considerations must yield to the preservation in its perfect integrity of that vital principle to which Ihave just referred. (Hear.) But while I maintain that no person ought to be punished in this country except upon clear evidence of his guilt, lam disposed to think it a question well worthy -of the attention of the Government how far the Jaws at present in existence can be put in force .for the prevention of offences of the heinous na-, ture to which I have been alluding. I do not •presume to express any opinion as to the specific .measures which may be introduced with the ; .view of striking somewhat more of terror-into,' .the minds of the persons by whom such crimes \ are contemplated, and for thejuirpose of making manifest to the sensitive people of France the sincerity of our expression of goodwill in their regard;"but I may nevertheless give utterance to the hope that her Majesty's Ministers may be f table to see their way to the framing of-some law which may prove enecfriial for the suppression of those attempts at assassination .while-it does not ■infringe upon the vital principles of the constitution. (Hear, hear.) To the enactment of such a measure as that Parliament would, I feel assured, be prepared to give a cheerful assent. •.(Hear, hear.) Now, my Lords, I thought it expedient, as a member of this house wholly unconnected with the Government, —her Majesty's Ministers not having deemed it to be their duty to offer any expression of opinion upon the subject—to sieze this the first opportunity which presents itself, to advert to the late attempt upon the life of the French Emperor, and to state the views with respect to it which I entertain. I feel a deep interest in the continuance of the life of that monarch, and I attach the utmost importance to the maintenaince -of a good understanding—not only between the sovereigns of England and France but between the people of the two countries. It is, in my opinion, of the greatest moment to France that her present ruler should long remain at the head of her Government—a Government of which I will say nothing more than that I believe it to be at the present moment is best suited .to the feelings, the habits, and the opinions of the French nation. These being my sentiments, I deemed it desirable that I should do all that in me lay to remove any misapprehension or misconception with respect to England from the minds of the people of that country. lam also anxious to learn from her Majesty's Government how far they concur with me in the general principles which I have just laid down. I do not ask them to pledge themselves to any particular measure. I simply seek to know how far they are disposed, notwithstanding the imprudent and irritating language of those whose conduct well merits, if we were inclined to retaliate upon them, that we should refuse to take any steps whatever for the prevention of those plots for the future —how far, I say, they are disposed to afford exery possible security for the protection of the lives of foreign princes against the danger of assassinatioa. I should be glad to hear that her Majesty's Ministers are prepared to <ieclare whether the existing laws are adequate to that end, and, if not, whether they might not be so amended as to meet, wholly unconnected with any political consideration whatever, such a crime as that of which I have been speaking—a crime so heinous in itself, and so revolting to every feeling of humanity. (Cheers)