Now! Then! Tory Radical Joshua Hobson tells Leeds council that Liberal mayor Hamer Stansfield was wrong to prohibit public meetings on the semi-privatised Kirkgate market

17 July 1844: Tory Radical Joshua Hobson tells Leeds council that Liberal mayor Hamer Stansfield was wrong to prohibit public meetings on the semi-privatised Kirkgate market

Northern Star. 1844/07/20. Important Proceedings. Leeds: Joshua Hobson. Get it:

Excerpt

The right to meet is one which we have no power to destroy, nor even to abridge. It is a right which has not been conferred by statute. It is one which has existed, and one, too, which has been exercised, from time immemorial. Contemporaneous with the right to meet is the right of free discussion. The one right necessarily implies the other. The right to meet would be nothing without the right to speak; neither would the right to speak without the right to meet. Both are necessary for the very existence of freedom; and both are guaranteed to Englishmen by the common law of the land; nor do I fear that any here will dispute them, however annoyed they may have been at their exercise. The next point is, where are the people to meet. Meetings to be beneficial must be in public. Their primary object is to form public opinion, and bring it to bear upon acts of general or local oppression, or in aid of just and necessary measures of public policy. In public, they are open to observation; and the proceedings if wrong or illegal can be rectified. In private they are unsafe and dangerous, because plottings, émeutes [riots], and outbreaks will assuredly flow from them. They are dangerous, and therefore the law rightly forbids them. Meetings, therefore, to be of use, of benefit, and to be lawful, must be public. The means for the exercise of this great and undoubted right of assembly is, on public property – the place of public resort – the marketplaces of the different cities, boroughs, and towns of the empire, where the authorities know at all times what is going on, and are enabled in the event of anything going wrong to at once apply a corrective. All contribute to maintain them; they are set apart for public convenience, and clearly ought to be at the public service. Were this not so, and had not the public a right to meet on public ground, the right to meet might be defeated. The right of so meeting in marketplaces has existed without let or hindrance from time immemorial. That right still exists; and has become a prescriptive right, as indefeasible as the right to meet itself.

Order the book

Subscribe to the free daily email

To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.
Abbreviations:

ER: East Riding
GM: Greater Manchester
NR: North Riding
NY: North Yorkshire
SY: South Yorkshire
WR: West Riding
WY: West Yorkshire

Comment

Via Katrina Navickas (Navickas 2016). Hobson’s motion failed.

Something to say? Get in touch

Original

IMPORTANT PROCEEDINGS.
RIGHT OF MEETING, AND FREE DISCUSSION.
LEEDS TOWN COUNCIL.
[Procedures, several other agenda items]
THE RIGHTS OF THE PEOPLE.
The next notice on the paper was the following:-
To put a question to the Mayor, to ascertain whether a certain letter, – purporting to be written at the instance of the Mayor, on the 17th of June, 1844, by Edward Read, Chief Constable, to certain Requisitionists who had convened a Public Meeting of the Inhabitants in the Vicar’s Croft Market, on Tuesday Evening, June 18th, warning them not to held such at meeting, – was written at the instance of the Mayor, or at his suggestion.
2 – And further, in case the answer to such question should be in the affirmative, to put another question, to ascertain the grounds or reasons that induced the Mayor to interfere to prevent a Public Meeting of the Inhabitants, for a legal purpose, and legally convened, in a Market to all intents and purposes Public Property, having been purchased at the public expense, and and held in TRUST by the Council for the use and behoef [benefit] of the Public, as a Public Market.

This notice bore the signature “Jos. Hobson,” and the Mayor called upon that gentleman, upon which,

Mr. Alderman TOTTIE rose and said, that seeing the notice was to put a question to the Mayor as to some act which he had executed in his official capacity, he was of opinion that the question was quite out of order; and that the Council had no business whatever to interfere with the magisterial duties of the Mayor.

Mr. Hobson rose to order. He denied the right of Mr. Alderman Tottie to rise until the question had been raised. It was impossible for Mr. Tottie to know what he (Mr. H.) was going to do, or how he should shape his question. It would be time enough to take objection when the point arose. His present business was to present a memorial to the Council from the inhabitants of Leeds in public meeting assembled on the 18th of June.

Mr. TOTTIE submitted that such a proceeding was more disorderly still; there was no notice on the paper of any such intention.

Mr. HOBSON stood waiting until Mr. Tottie had done, but before could at all explain himself,

The MAYOR decided that the proceeding was not in order; the memorial ought to have been given to the Town Clerk, that it might have been read at the commencement of the proceedings.

Mr. HOBSON said he had taken the opinion of the Town Clerk upon that very point, and had asked him if it was requisite to give any notice of the presentation of the memorial. Ho had acted on the opinion of the Town Clerk, and if he was in any way wrong, he must throw the onus upon him.

The TOWN CLERK thought Mr. Hobson had never spoken to him on the subject of the memorial; and afterwards Mr. Hobson remembered that it was to Mr. Wardle (the Town Clerk’s assistant) to whom he had mentioned the subject.

Mr. HOBSON then remarked that the question was, whether a memorial from the inhabitants was to be shut out of the Council on such a point!

Mr. Alderman LUPTON thought the Council ought to hear the memorial read; but Mr. Hobson must see that he was out of order.

The MAYOR said it was clearly out of order.

Mr. HOBSON would like to know how he was out of order.

Mr. LUPTON – By the fifth standing order.

Mr. HOBSON denied this, and an irregular discussion ensued in which three or four of the members were talking one against the other, and the standing orders being referred to, Mr. Hobson stood on a point of right, which he claimed for the inhabitants, to enter the Council, by one of their own body, through memorial; and that too without notice. A member of the House of Commons had not to give notice when he presented a petition; and surely the little parliament of Leeds was not more unapproachable than the big house itself!

Mr. LUPTON moved that the memorial be read as a matter of courtesy, which was seconded, and another disorderly discussion ensued; Mr. Hobson strongly contending for the right of the inhabitants to appear in that chamber, without such courtesy. There was no standing order that required notice to be given that a memorial should be presented.

The MAYOR decided against the presentation of the memorial, and also against its being read.

Mr. HOBSON. – Then am I to understand that the memorial of the inhabitants of Leeds to the Leeds Town Council is kicked out? -(cries of “no, no;” “take other steps with it”). I understood that it was agreed to receive it as a matter of courtesy.

A MEMBER remarked that the Mayor had decided that the presentation was irregular, and therefore that question could not be put.

Mr. HOBSON – Then the inhabitants must come in another shape, it seems.

The MAYOR then said, that in reply to the point raised by Mr. Alderman Tottie, as to the regularity of any questions being put to himself affecting anything done in his magisterial capacity, he thought that also was quite out of order.

Mr. CLIFF contended that on the occasion in question the Mayor was not acting in his magisterial capacity at all, but as Mayor of the borough; and solely by the power which he had derived from the Council.

Mr. TOTTIE rose to explain, but

Mr. HOBSON contended that he had no right to explain, as he was utterly ignorant of the course which he (Mr. H.) was about to pursue. The whole proceeding was disorderly; the Mayor’s decision among the rest.

Mr. TOTTIE – I only know what is on the paper.

Mr. HOBSON, again rising – Mr. Tottie does not know in what shape I may put my question. How can he possibly know in what form to urge his objection. The question should have been raised by me, before there was either objection or decision. Both these are disorderly and unfair.

Mr. TOTTIE, at the top of his voice – You are out of order; and turning to Mr. Hobson, “I can shout as hard as you.”

Another scene of “all talkers and no hearers” ensued, of which it would be impossible to convey any adequate idea. At length, on silence being in some degree restored,

The MAYOR decided that the question referred to an act done in his magisterial capacity, and to enter upon it there was clearly out of order. He therefore called upon Mr. Hobson to proceed with the next notice.

Mr. HOBSON then was about to offer some explanatory observations, when he was once more stopped by the Mayor, who called upon the meeting to support him amidst those attacks, and there were immediately loud cries of “Chair, chair,” and another rich scene of confusion.

Mr. HOBSON denied that he was about to renew the question; he had not from the first intended to put the question of which he had given notice, to the Mayor at that time; and if the Council had but listened to his explanation at first, instead of acting in the disorderly manner in which they had done, they would have been better informed, and all the confusion might have been spared. He had communicated his intention to the Town Clerk, and acquainted him with the course which he intended to pursue; and he must again say that he had been very unfairly treated.

RIGHT TO THE MARKET.

Mr. HOBSON then proceeded, I rise now, Sir, to bring before the notice of the Council the following resolution:-

That as the Inhabitants of any City, Borough, or Town Corporate, have an undoubted right to use a public Market-place as a place of public assembly for all lawful purposes, so that such assembling does not prevent, or interfere with, the due course of holding the regular market on the days set apart as market-days; and inasmuch as the Market-place held in TRUST by the Council of this Borough for the use and behoof of the Burgesses end inhabitants at large, is, to all intents and purposes a public Market-place – its purchase and setting-apart for that purpose having been ordered by a vote of the ratepayers in vestry assembled, in accordance with the requirements of an Act of Parliament, and the purchase money paid out of a fund raised by assessment upon the inhabitants at large; it is manifestly clear that such inhabitants have a right to use such public Market-place as a place of meeting for all lawful purposes, on all occasions when not occupied with the immediate business of the market: and further, as it would not be lawful for this Council, either by vote or other not, to devote or divert the said public Market-place to any other purpose than that for which they hold it IN TRUST, so neither can they by vote, by leasing of tolls, or by any other act, abridge, annul, or render void any of the rights and privileges accruing to the public from their setting apart and maintaining such Market-place as a place for holding markets, and for all other purposes and uses connected with markets and Market places.

I just now explained that this was the question I intended first to bring forward out of the seven of which I have given notice. I determined to do so, because I was wishful that the whole question should come fully and fairly before the Council, without reference to the parties who have been the cause of the question being raised. I therefore determined to waive the questions of which I had given notice, respecting the conduct of individuals, until the Council had come to a decision upon this motion: individuals, therefore, and the nature of their conduct, are for the present out of court. In taking this course, Sir, I can assure the Council that I am impelled only by the strong sense which I entertain of my public duty, in thus endeavouring to give effect to the almost unanimous feeling of the inhabitants of the borough, as expressed in the various public meetings which have been held upon this subject, at which resolutions have been all but unanimously agreed to, deprecating the steps which have been taken to prevent the people from exercising their undoubted right. The question which I am thus bringing before the Council, Sir, is one of great importance; it is a question involving the right to meet and the right of free discussion. If the public are not allowed to meet in the only place which belongs to them – in the market place, the place of public resort – a severe blow is at once struck at an “undoubted” right. Many parties, Sir, are disposed to underrate the importance of this question. They contend that mere personal hostility prompts the steps that have been taken to repel the unjust aggression which has been attempted on public right; and that a great deal more is made of it than it deserves. Sir, this is not the case, if it can be clearly shown that the sacred right of free discussion is involved. This, Sir, is a question affecting public liberty, the first assaults upon which are generally made in matters which of themselves appear to be unimportant; and if these first assaults are tamely acquiesced in and quietly submitted to, the advantage thus gained is invariably used to the establishing and carrying out of other and more sweeping measures detrimental to the liberty of the subject. Many matters, Sir, that of themselves appeared unimportant, have ultimately proved to have been pregnant with momentous consequences. The fate of nations, and even the particular phase of civilization itself, have frequently depended on the settlement of disputes and contests arising out of what in themselves and of themselves were trivial and unimportant matters. John Hampden was merely called upon to pay his share of a tax called “ship-money” – a tax which thousands had paid without even so much as a murmur; a tax very inconsiderable indeed in amount: and if John Hampden had acted as some good, easy, cozy souls in our day would have done, and as many in his day did do, he would have complied with the unjust, trivial demand, and enjoyed his quiet. But John Hampden saw in the enforcement of that tax an attempt to establish arbitrary power. John Hampden saw in the enforcement of that tax the sacrifice of the right of self-Government; an attempt to establish the principle that the people could be taxed otherwise than through their chosen representatives. Therefore, he resisted this little insignificant matter – this slight unconstitutional encroachment, and what was the result? A struggle – a civil war; and the head of King Charles rolled from the scaffold, while the benefit to posterity was the universal recognition and establishment of the principle that taxes can alone be imposed by the representatives of the people in the House of Commons. Had John Hampden viewed the question as some parties wish to view the present one, we should have had the establishment of permanent arbitrary rule. First assaults on public liberty, Sir, are always made on unimportant matters; at least on matters which are seemingly unimportant; but from them the most momentous consequences ensue, and unless met at the first with vigour, the whole of public rights and liberties are one by one sacrificed. I purpose to show that the prohibition of public meeting in our Market is an infringement on public liberty; and therefore, I trust, we shall hear no more about the insignificance of the question. It may appear insignificant, at the first blush, to an unthinking mind; but if the right of freely meeting to discuss grievances be involved and in jeopardy, it is manifest that the question is important; and that it is one which this Council, as the guardian of local liberty, are bound to take up and settle on a satisfactory basis. It therefore, Sir, becomes my duty to show that these great and valuable rights are involved in the proceedings that have taken place, to put down public assemblies in our public Market-place. That Market Sir, was set apart for the public, and by the public; and because it was so set apart, this Council, as trustees on behalf of the public, are bound to see that their rights in it, are respected and maintained. I shall for the present treat the question solely on its own merits – totally irrespective of the parties engaged in the recent attempt to deprive the people of their right. I shall not at present discuss the motives that may have actuated them; nor the means which they have resorted to, to carry their object into effect. It is sufficient for our present purpose to call to recollection the fact that attempts, and partly successful, have been made to put down meetings. That is sufficient of itself to make it a duty incumbent on this Council to interfere, and set both parties right, the public and the authorities, as to the extent of each of their rights and privileges in connexion with the matter. To bring the whole matter fairly before the Council in all its bearings, and on its own merits alone, so that it may be fully and fairly discussed, and a decision arrived at separate and distinct from all party feeling. I have endeavoured to frame a resolution which I think raises that whole question, and which resolution I shall move before I resume my seat. I intend to establish every point contained in that the resolution; the right to meet; the right to use a public Market Place as a place of meeting; that the Kirkgate Market Place, over which we have controul, is a public one; that this Council holds it IN TRUST only as such; that the Council have no right or power to betray or abuse that trust; and that they cannot delegate such power to any other party. All this, Sir, I intend to make as plain as propositions can be made; and having done so, I think that the Council will feel itself compelled unanimously affirm my resolution, and thus set the matter, out of which an exciting and serious dispute has arisen, effectually at rest.

Mr. HEAPS – But you will fail.

Mr. HOBSON – The gentleman says I shall fail. There is another of those “foregone conclusions,” of which, of late, there has been so much reason to complain. Without my reasons having been at all heard, I am told that I shall fail. We shall see. First then, sir, as to the right of the people to meet. That right, by recent proceedings, has been called in question; and it therefore behoves me, as a ground-work for subsequent operations, to show that the right to meet is one which we have no power to destroy, nor even to abridge. The right to meet has been recently distinctly acknowledged, and declared to be “an undoubted one,” by every Judge on the bench. Each of them has distinctly set it forth as one guaranteed to every British subject, by virtue of his being subject to British laws. It is a right which has not been conferred by statute; does not depend on an Act of the English Parliament. It is one which has existed, and one, too, which has been exercised, from time immemorial; and it, is thus a PRESCRIPTIVE RIGHT – a right of the most indefensible character. Contemporaneous with the right to meet is the right of free discussion. The one right necessarily implies the other. The right to meet would be nothing without the right to speak; neither would the right to speak without the right to meet. There can be no mistake about that. Both are necessary for the very existence of freedom: and both are guaranteed to Englishmen by the common law of the land; nor do I fear that any here will dispute them, however annoyed they may have been at their exercise. The right of the people to meet being thus settled, the next point is, WHERE are the people to meet; to exercise what is denominated by the Judges an “indefeasable” and “an undoubted” right. Meetings to be beneficial must be in public. They are dangerous only when they are held in private. Their primary object is to form public opinion, and bring it to bear upon acts of general or local oppression, or in aid of just and necessary measures of public policy. Meetings held in private are worse than useless; they are mischievous. In public, they are open to observation; and the proceedings if wrong or illegal can be rectified. In private they are unsafe and dangerous, because plottings, emuetes, and outbreaks will assuredly flow from them. The authorities, were meetings held in private, would never be safe, for they would never know whether or not they were treading one a mine, nor when it would explode. It has been well said that public meetings are the safety valve of the state; that excited passion and feeling, which, if pent up, would inevitably explode, by their means find vent and escape, and sober judgment remains behind to effect the necessary changes, or to carry out the measures on which public happiness depend. The genius and spirit of the constitution as well as the good feeling of the people are all against secret meetings. They are dangerous; and therefore the law rightly forbids them. Meetings, therefore, to be of use, of benefit, and to be lawful, must be public. But WHERE? In what place are they to be held? It is clear that the right to meet could not exist, or at least that it would be useless, without the MEANS for its due exercise. The means for the exercise of this great and undoubted right of assembly is, on public property – the place of public resort – the Market-places of the the different cities, boroughs, and towns of the empire, where the authorities know at all times what is going on, and are enabled in the event of anything going wrong to at once apply a corrective. Besides, what place so likely! What places so unobjectionable? All contribute to maintain them; they are set apart for public convenience, and clearly ought to be at the public service. Were this not so, and had not the public a right to meet on public ground, the right to meet might be defeated. If the public were obliged to hold their public meetings on private property, or were compelled to ask the owner of property for a place in which to meet, the owners of convenient places for large assemblies could, by combination, make the right to meet null and void, by refusing consent; which they have clearly call a right to do. I have a right to refuse a meeting being held in any house of mine, and so have others; the right to meet depends on no such consent; if it did, then would there be an end to that public liberty. The market places throughout the country have always been used as places of public assembly, ever since market places were established. Consult the statute book, and you will find dozens of enactments providing for, and enjoining, assemblies at the public market cross for different purposes. It was at the market cross that formerly all proclamations were made; it was at the market cross that all laws and enactments were publicly read, that the inhabitants of the land might know what the laws were. The old Saxon institution, the Folksmote, was held at the market cross. That was essentially a public assembly, being in fact a gathering of the inhabitants of the district to transact their public business. From that institution, and the manner in which it transacted its business, has been derived a term of which we hear much at the present day, but which now means quite a different thing to what it meant then; I mean the term election, by poll. When the inhabitants were assembled together in the Market-place, with the proper officer presiding, and when a proposition, which had been fully discussed was submitted to a show of hands, if the number of hands on each side were so equal as to render the decision at all doubtful, the people used to divide on each side, with their heads, or polls, uncovered, and thus stood until the presiding officer could see the number of polls on each side, or until they were counted. The right of so meeting in Market-places has existed without let or hindrance from time immemorial. That right still exists; and has become a prescriptive right, as indefeasible as the right to meet itself. Mr. Hobson then proceeded to illustrate this part of his subject by facts; instancing Covent-garden Market, in London, which, although the freehold was vested in the Duke of Bedford, and was private property, being erected into a market-place by Act of Parliament, was nevertheless, by virtue solely of its being a market, free to the inhabitants of Westminster for the purpose of holding public meetings therein; meetings convened not only by the High Bailiff but by the people themselves. He next alluded to Smithfield market-place, and the market-places at Huddersfield and at Keighley, and detailed the usages connected with them bearing on the question. He then referred at some length to the establishment of the market at Leeds, in the year 1626, when the Tuesday’s market was established, and when the markets were held in Cross Parish, where there was a market cross erected, and where round the steps of which the people used to meet at any time which suited their convenience; and he traced the various changes, and the acts under which such changes had been made, down to the time of the purchase and establishment of the Market in Vicar’s Croft, in reference to which he observed:- This brings me to an important portion, or division, of my argument. I have now to show that the Vicar’s Croft market is, to all intents and purposes, a public market, and, as such, liable to all the uses and purposes to which public markets in general are. My proposition on this head is, that this Vicar’s Croft market-place has been erected by the inhabitants themselves, in aid of the formerly existing market-places; that no doubt can possibly exist that such was their intention; that they have taken all proper means to carry that intention into effect; that this Council holds that plot of ground IN TRUST, on the sole condition that they will cause that intention to be observed; and that, consequently, all the rights, privileges, and immunities that now pertain, or that ever did pertain, to the inhabitants from the possession of Cross Parish market-place, appertain to the Vicar’s Croft market-place; and that no power, save the Parliament of England, can denude the inhabitants of those rights. That there is necessarily a limit to the right to meet in public market-places, I admit. That limit is public convenience. The right to meet could not, nor ought it to be, exercised to the defeating of the first object had in view in erecting market-places – the due holding of markets on market-days. The right to meet in market-places is rightly secondary to the holding of markets; that is, the right to meet there must be exercised at times and seasons which will not interfere with, or prevent the due holding of markets – that there shall not be public assemblies during the hours of market. This limit is a reasonable one; and is the only limit to the right of meeting in such places. The right of so meeting appertains to all public market-places, wherever situate or wherever erected. It accrues to the inhabitants from the establishment of the market and the erection of a market-place. A market place is a place of public resort; and wherever one is erected it necessarily becomes subject to all the laws, conditions, and usages to which other market-places are subject, unless it is specially ordered to the contrary. There is, there can be, no reasons to suppose that the old Market-place of Leeds was differently situated in this respect from other market-places. Common usage shows that it was not. It is well known that the old Market Place was constantly used as a place of public resort and public assembly for the town of Leeds until the erection of the Vicar’s Croft Market; since when that has been used as a more convenient place. To prove this Mr. Hobson referred to a great mass of strong documentary evidence, commencing with the history of the erection of the Market Place, and going through the Acts of Parliament under which the town has been at different times governed down to the the time when, by resolutions of the people in vestry assembled, it was determined to purchase the Vicar’s Croft, as a free and open Market Place, for the sale of produce, in aid of the old Market Place, become too small for the increased population; and after examining in detail the power given by the present Improvement Act to the Council to collect tolls in all this Market Place, or to lease the market to others for that purpose, he concluded as follows:- But the Council, in this case, can only lease the tolls and stallages; they cannot lease the ground; and even if they could, it could only be on condition that the rights of the inhabitants should be respected and maintained. It would not for a moment be contended, that if the collection of the tolls was in the hands of the Corporation, that they could prohibit the Market-place from being used as all other Market-places can be used by virtue of their being such; and if they then possess no such power themselves, it is manifest they cannot delegate such power to others. The Act gives us the power to lease the tolls, but it does not give us the power to lease the ground. I know this is the pinch of the question. I know that parties contend that when they lease the Market, and the right to take tolls, they lease the Market-place; but I apprehend that this is not such a construction as would be put upon it by any lawyer of eminence; for it would indeed be a monstrous proposition that, because the lessee has purchased the right to collect the toll, that therefore he has a right to prohibit a legitimate and lawful use of the Market-place. It might as well be contended that a person leasing the tolls of a highway acquires the right to prevent foot passengers to use the road. The one contracts for the right to collect toll from those who are liable to pay it, irrespective of those who have a right to use the Market Place without let or hindrance; and so of the other. But admitting that the Lessee did lease the Market Place, it would not make the difference of a pin’s weight to the argument; for if it be true that the right of publicly meeting in market places exists in connexion with all such market places, there is no power but the supreme legislature that can interfere to annul or abridge that right or to prevent the public from exercising it. The argument which had been put forward that the lessee could prevent the people from meeting, was not worth a straw. The market-place is a public market-place; and it is impossible for them to denude the public of a privilege which so truly appertains to them. The mere leasing of the tolls could in no case prevent the right of public meetings being held on public property. I know that the language of the Act is, that the Council may lease “the Market or any part of it”: and then parties jump to the conclusion that the term Market means Market-place; between which there is as much difference and distinction as between a fair and the fair ground. The one term does not include the other: for the Market-place is always there; always to be found; while the market is only to be met with on certain days. On Tuesdays and Saturdays you will find the market; you will find buying and selling; you will find wares exposed for sale, and parties seeking to purchase; but on the other days of the week the market is not there. It is non est inventus. But the market-place abides. It is always there; and therefore it is manifest that there is a palpable and manifest distinction between the two; that the two terms mean essentially different things. The Act gives the Council power to lease the market, or any part of it; that is, either the beast market, the hog market, or the vegetable market, or all of them; but not the power to lease the ground on which such market is held. My argument, therefore, is now complete. The right to meet is fully established; the right to use public market-places for public meetings is shown to be a prescriptive right, in constant exercise both in our own town and in others; the fact of the Vicar’s-Croft Market-place being a public one is established beyond the possibility of dispute, as the terms of holding settle that question; and those terms are that it shall he be FREE and OPEN. The point that this Council only hold it in trust on that condition is also established; and it has been shown that they have no power to alter that condition, and that consequently whoever holds under them, by lease, can only hold on the same condition. I therefore now all on the Council to pass the resolution; to decide the case on its own merits; on the grounds that it has been argued on, without reference to parties or persons. Mr. Hobson concluded by formally proposing his resolution.

Mr. Councillor JACKSON in seconding the motion, said he had hoped that the Mayor would have evinced courage enough to explain his conduct to the Council, particularly as it had been so generally called in question.

Mr. Alderman TOTTIE said it was not his intention to occupy a long time; he had always admitted the right which Mr. Hobson contended for, the simple question here was reduced to what was the law under this Act of Parliament. To that act he had not given his consent, and therefore if there was anything in it which infringed upon the rights of the inhabitants he was not privy to it. It had been said that if they negatived this motion it would not decide the question, but if they affirmed it would that decide the question? He (Mr. T.) would give an explanation which it was not quite in order for the Mayor to give, and, therefore, it was that he rose on the point of order. He apprehended there was not a man in that assembly who would affirm that there was a right in the Council to question a magistrate regarding his acts out of the Council. If a magistrate did wrong he might be brought before the Queen’s Bench. He apprehended that the matter contained in the notice upon the paper, only referred to an act which had been done by the Mayor in his magisterial capacity, and therefore he had objected to the question being put. But he was nevertheless anxious that the public should be made acquainted with the whole facts of the case. The simple question was, whether the Council, in letting this market and these tolls, had passed the land itself to the lessee. When a lease was granted to a man of a given property, the lease conveyed to the lessee for his term all the rights which appertained to it, unless the proprietor intended to retain any portion of them, and then he must do so by express words. The question was whether, in the demise made to Mr. Bower there was such a bargain made as would entitle him to consider the Market-place his close: if it were not so, what were the reservations? There were in the agreement or lease some restrictions, but certainly none which gave any inhabitant a right to come into that market and hold a meeting without consent. His impression was that the demise of the markets and of the tolls, as it was amended, did pass to Mr. Bower, the right of saying that no person should come into that Market-place, except for market purposes; but he was not so confident in his opinion as the worthy Councillor who had introduced the motion. Mr. Bower also conceived that he had taken the land, and therefore he had in consequence addressed a letter “to the Worshipful the Mayor and Magistrates of Leeds.” [The Alderman read the letter, who after alluding to the announcement of the meeting which was to be held on Tuesday, the market day, for purposes inconsistent with a market, and stating that as lessee he had suffered damage from such meetings on former occasions, set forth his objection to the meeting being held in the Market-place as notified, and requested that such notice might be given as would prevent the meeting from being held, and prevent any breach of the peace.] If he had been the Mayor, he should have read that letter as the Mayor had done, and should have thought that he was at Mr. Bower’s instance called upon to interfere. But there was another point. If this general right of meeting in the market place for other than market purposea was to be retained, it ought to be reserved upon the lease, and the parties ought to have full knowledge of it; and if it were so, he was quite sure they would not get so large a rental for it. The parties who took it ought to be told of that ocondition; he thought that Mr. Bower had not taken it upon that condition, and that if the resolution moved by Mr. Hobson were affirmed, it would not decide the quarrel. He therefore thought that was not a resolution which they ought to declare, and he should certainly vote against it.

Mr. HEAPS corroborated Mr. Hobson as to the people assembling, for public purposes, around the old Market Cross, in Briggate, but said that they had not always been suffered to remain there quietly, as he had seen what were then called Tom Painers pulled down and dragged away.

Mr. YEWDALL followed, and said that he had been requested by the inhabitants living around and near the market in question to state to the Council their wish that all the meetings might be put down, as they were a great annoyance. In that opinion he cordially joined: for the character of the main of the meetings on Sundays was truly disgraceful. During the course of Mr. Hobson’s long harangue, he had never once alluded to these Sunday meetings, or told the Council what they really were. As that had not been done, he (Mr. Yewdall) would do so. They were nothing but meetings for the spread of Infidel and Socialist opinions, and political disputation. At first the meetings were religious meetings only; and then they were rightfully allowed: but now that infidelity was openly preached, it was time to put them down; and if they could not be got rid of without putting down the religious meetings also, he would say do away with all. It was to be regretted, thst the magistrates had not power to enter buildings, rooms, and places, where such meetings were held on the Sabbath Day, and disperse them; and he must say, that he considered the magistracy highly remiss in not doing so. He had seen the day when such things as politieal meetings on the Sunday would not have been permitted; the magistracy would have suppressed them; and he could not but blame the present magistrates for not having made the attempt. But at all events, if the Sunday meetings in rooms could not be got at, those in the public air could; and surely the magistracy did not know what was there vomited forth. He did; for he had attended them, and heard the rankest infidelity; the lie given to Ministers of the Gospel of Truth; the existence of God himself even called in question: and crowds assembled to hear this sort of matter; even youth was prevented from attending the Sabbath School; and other evils flowed from the practice. For these reasons he should vote against the motion: for it was only one to open the gate for the flow of infidelity, vice, and all the horrors of Socialism.

Mr. CLIFFE could not sit still and hear the sentiments uttered by the last speaker, without reprobation. Convinced as he was of the truth and stability of the Christian religion, still if it could not maintain its stand by the power of reason and argument alone, let it fall. So far from agreeing with the last speaker, that the power of the law and the truncheon should be called in to aid in putting down opinion, he said let all have free expression, free discussion – and truth would triumph at last. He rejoiced that our Magistracy, instead of setting themselves up as the judges of truth and error in opinion, acted on the contrary principle that man is accountable not to his fellow man for his opinions, but only for, his actions. That conduct was alone compatible with the true principles of freedom – freedom of thought and freedom of expression; and glad was he that the day had passed when the baton or the sword were had recourse to prevent either the one or the other. As for the general question, he fully agreed with the resolution. He considered it had been fully established in all its parts; and he trusted that all would join with him in voting for it.

Alderman LUCCOCK must also enter his protest and against the sentiments that had been uttered by Mr. Yewdall. He could not agree that opinion should be at all coerced. Mr. Yowdall had talked of putting down what he called infidelity: why he (Alderman Luccock) was an Unitarian; and no doubt in Mr. Yewdall’s eyes was an infidel: upon Mr. Yewdal’s principles he (Alderman Luccock) must be put down: yet he presumed to say that he had as much right to entertain and express his (infidel) opinions as Mr. Yewdall had: and the infidel and Socialist had as much right as either of them. FREE DISCUSSION meant free discussion: and he would not consent that the meetings in the market should be prohibited on the ground of expression of any sort of opinion. If they were to be the prohibited, it must be on far other grounds than that. He should vote against the resolution, because he thought it unnecessary. He recognised the right of the people to meet; and the only hindrance to the exereise of that right was the existing lease: but even that would not operate; for the lessee had resolved not to further interfere; and therefore the question was settled.

Mr. YEWDALL explained. He did not object to meetings or discussion on the week days. He would only prevent political discussion, and stop the Socialists and other infidels from uttering their sentiments, on the Sabbath.

Mr. BARRATT, even to prevent the utterance of those sentiments would not interfere with the great principle involved in the question. If truth was mighty, it would surely prevail. He should vote against the motion as the lease now stood, but endeavour to apply a remedy for the future.

Mr. BOWER corroborated Mr. Hobson as to the right of preaching in Smithfield market, and added that the police took care to prevent any disturbance being made by parties who might go for the purpose of causing interruption.

Mr. Alderman LUPTON would vote for the resolution, and denied the right of Mr. Joshua Bower, jun., to stop the Sunday meetings.

Mr. M. CAWOOD had not given an opinion on the matter before he came to the Council, having reserved himself to hear the arguments that were to be advanced on both sides of the question. He was sorry that absence had prevented him from attending the meeting in the Ward he represented: for that would have given him an opportunity of meeting his constituents, which he had never yet had. However, he was there at the Council Meeting, and had paid attention to what had been advanced: and he must do Mr. Hobson the justice to say, that he had never heard a more conclusive or satisfactory address in his life. The speech with which that gentleman had introduced his motion evinced an amount of research highly creditable, and in his opinion left nothing more to be said on the question. He had fully made out his case; and he (Mr. Cawood) should vote for the motion, that the dispute might be ended. The motion was necessary to that end, that all parties might know their exact position, and not get wrong in future. As for the sentiments uttered by Mr. Yewdall, he must beg to dissent from them in toto. If religion could not stand without such extraneous and unholy aid as that gentleman wished to invoke, she ought to fall. The time had gone by when either such sentiments or such practices would be acquiesced in: and he was glad to have seen the marked manner in which they had been deprecated by the Council generally.

Mr. GAUNT contended that the Council had no power to proceed with the matter; they could adjudicate upon the point of law. He would therefore move as an amendment, that the Council do pass to the next order of the day.

Mr. YEWDALL seconded the amendment.

Mr. KELSALL thought that public meetings had a right to be held in the Vicar’s Croft, and that the Council had nothing to do with it.

Mr. HOBSON rose to reply. He would first apply himself to the defence set up by Mr. Tottie. He would not then enter into the explanation given by that gentleman, as to the reason of the Mayor’s conduct in prohibiting a meeting in the Market-place, but deal only with that portion of his remarks which applied to the question before the house. The only defence, the only attempt at answer, made, was that the Market-place itself, the ground, was leased to the lessee, with the market tolls. He had before argued that point; and and Mr. Tottie, with a modesty becoming him as a lawyer, snubbed him (Mr. Hobson) for stating his law so confidently, respectfully intimating that his (Mr. Tottie’s) opinion was not expressed as a confident one. He (Mr. Hobson) had been confident in the opinion that the term Market did not mean Market-place; for common-sense told him so; and till Mr. Tottie proved that the one did necessarily mean and include the other, he . (Mr. Hobson) must tell him that his idea that the ground was leased because the market and its tolls were leased, was utterly fallacious and untenable. Mr. Tottie’s only other argument was, that if the right of the public to use the market existed (and he did not deny that right, barring the lease) the lessee ought to know of it: for, certainly that lessee would not give the Council as much money for his take under such circumstances as he now did. What was that but in other words saying that the rights of the people had been made matter of bargain and sale?! that because more money could be got from the market lessee, if those rights were overborne, it was a reason why the Council should not pass his resolution securing do those rights? And would the Council listen to such an argument as that? Was that the high-ground taken by the defenders of the recent proceedings? Were the Council content to be mere hucksters of the people’s privileges, setting them up to sale for a sum of money? Such an argument was not worth replying to: it only deserved to be scornfully scouted out of the room. He next came to the objections urged by Mr. Yewdall: and he must express the great pain with which he had listened to the narrow-minded, bigotted, ungenerous remarks which that gentleman had made: remarks and sentiments that would have disgraced the utterer in the most bigotted age; but which, coming from a self-professing “liberal;” from a member of a dissenting body; from one who claimed the right of religious liberty and free discussion for himself; coming from such a man, under such circumstances, they were indeed disgraceful. What did they actually amount to? Why, that because sentiments opposed to his; because opinions with which he could not agree, were uttered, the rights of the people were to be sacrificed! As long as the meetings were religious ones; i.e. according to Mr. Yewdall’s notions, they were all right. Mr. Yewdall and his friends claimed a perfect right to carry their wares to market, and dispose of them; but the moment that others appeared, as for instance, Alderman Luccock with his Unitarianism, that moment was the arm of power to be called in, and the worthy Alderman’s mouth closed. Had such sentiments come from one of these old frightful hobgoblins in human shape they sometimes heard of, from an old Tory, the personification of bigotry and intolerance, there might not have been so much cause to wonder: but for them to proceed from a member of a sect that had risen from the exercise of the right now claimed for all; for such sentimeats to proceed from a member of that body which, in its infancy, so fully enjoyed the benefits and use of field, street, and Market preaching; to proceed from him, they were indeed condemnatory. Then he objected to the exercise of this right, because the inhabitants around the market complained. They were annoyed. And was that a reason why they should denude the public of rights? Annoyed, indeed! The exercise of all and every public liberty annoyed some one or other. If rights were to be abrogated on the ground of annoyance, there soon would be none left. The question was not one of annoyance; it was one of right. If the right existed it must he exercised; if it did not exist, there could be no exercise of it. In this strain Mr. Hobson continued for some time, admininstering a well-merited reproof to Mr. Yewdall, for his bad taste in introducing personal matters into a discussion that had been entirely free from them. Mr. Hobson also took occasion to refer to the noble and manly sentiments that had been given expression to by Mr. Councillor Cliffe and Mr. Alderman Luccock, in reprobation of the narrow-minded, persecuting sentiments of Mr. Yewdall. Those gentlemen had asserted, to the full, the pure principle of liberty of speech; and if the discussion which he (Mr. Hobson) had been the means of raising, had had no other effect than to draw forth such an honest and straightforward expression of such sentiments from men in such stations, it would not have been without its use – the tine of the Council would not have been mis-spent. [This tribute to the moral courage and honesty of the two gentlemen named was warmly acquiesced in by the major portion of the members of Council present.] At a subsequent period of his reply, Mr. Hobson paid a similar tribute to the manly ennobling speech of Mr. Councillor Martin Cawood; and strongly contrasted the expressed opinions of the “Tory” with the dark, illiberal, intolerant spleen Of the Whig. With reference to Mr. Yewdall’s regret that the magistracy did not enter the buildings set apart for political discussion, Mr. Hobson told him, for his comfort and consolation, that they had no power to do so. There was no law to prohibit political meetings – no, not even when held on Sunday.

Mr. YEWDALL: There ought to be.

Mr. HOBSON Aye, and would be, if it could ever happen again, as it once was, that the spirit of intolerance and darkness which actuates Mr. Yewdall, should attain ascendancy in the Legislative Council; but, thanks to the spirit of enlightenment, that was impossible. That spirit had visited nearly every nook and cranny of the land; it had even reached the “Tory,” and made him an advocate of full and free discussion; but it was quite evident it had passed Mr. Yewdall’s door. It was much to be desired that it should soon call there, for the credit of the man himself. Mr. Hobson also drew attention to the fact that every speaker who had opposed his motion, had admitted to the full, that the case on which he rested that motion was fully made out: that it was complete: and the only ground on which they wished to give the go-by to his resolution was, that it was unnecessary, as the parties who had interfered had withdrawn their opposition: and the public therefore would in future enjoy their right unmolestedly. He hardly thought that a ground for rejecting the motion: on the contrary, it was rather a ground for passing it. It was not a resolution of censure on any one; it would do no party any damage; it merely asserted a public right which every one now acknowledged, but the calling in question of which by some parties had led to a serious dispute; and the passing of the resolution by that body, as a declaration of opinion, would tend to prevent similar disputes in future. On that ground he claimed the vote of every man in the Council Chamber.

The vote was now taken; first by a show of hands on Alderman Gaunt’s amendment, that the Council proceed to the next order of the day, which was carried by a majority. The amendment having displaced the original Motion, it now became the question before the Council and as such was again put to the vote. The votes were recorded, and there were eighteen for it. Consequently Mr. Hobson’s motion was lost by a majority of six. The following are the recorded votes:-
FOR MR. GAUNT’s AMENDMENT. – Aldermen Oates, Gaunt, Maclea, Bateson, Luccock; Councillors Kelsall, Holmes, Barrett, Barlow, Sellers, Yewdall, Bower, Arthington, Hall, Marshall, Wilson, Strother, and Prince.
FOR MR.HOBSON’S MOTION. – Alderman Lupton and Councillors Jackson, Carbutt, J.W. Smith, White, Dufton, M. Cawood, Weddill, Broadhead, Cliff, Whitehead, and Hobson.

It now being a late hour, and there being many other notices on the paper undisposed of – four of them by Mr. Hobson, relative to this same market question, and the conduct of the lessee – the Council adjourned to Monday next, at eleven o’clock in the forenoon, when the discussions will be resumed.

There have been many discussions in the Council Chamber; but there never was one better or more ably conducted than the one reported above – barring the scenes presented just before it was fairly entered on.

9133 words.