Ireland.  The jurisdiction, then, of this House could not stand on common law, nor upon the Act of Union, because that Act gave no jurisdiction.  In the second place, as to the Committee of Selection, the question was, by the law and usage of Parliament, could they delegate to a committee the power to make regulations punishable by “Contempt,” by placing the party in custody, whereas the House had not the jurisdiction by common law to compel the attendance of members.  He took it, the House had no such common law power, because by the Sixth of Henry VIII. it was enacted, that the members of that House should attend the House.  Now if the common law jurisdiction existed, this statute would have been wholly unnecessary.

The Attorney-General, Sir William Follett, replied, that all the members of the House had consented to the resolutions of the 12th of February, thereby making them binding upon themselves; and that as Mr. O’Brien might have objected then, but did not, he was of course bound by them; and as to the Act of Union, he considered there was no force in the argument drawn from it, because the third article of that Act had made one Parliament of the two, enacting “that the said United Kingdom be represented in one and the same Parliament, to be styled the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.”

Sir Robert Peel, addressing himself to the most practical point of the discussion, said the question was—­“Have we or have we not the power to require the attendance of members on public committees?” He apprehended there could be no distinction between service on Committees and service in the House; and if the Act of Union did not give the power, it was from a belief that such a power was inherent in Parliament.  The great man, he said, who drew up those Acts of Union for Ireland and Scotland did not take a statutable sanction, for they all rested on higher grounds.

Sir Thomas Wilde, in giving his view of the case, made a distinction with regard to the common law; saying, that if there was no authority under the common law of the land to compel attendance on committees, there was under the common law of Parliament; a law not so old as the common law of the land, but as old as was necessary.  Complimenting O’Connell as a lawyer, he believed, he said, the opinion he had given was not the result of his legal knowledge, but of a laudable desire to release his friend from a difficulty.  The House, he said, could send the public to Committees, why not a member?  Had they more power over the public than the members of their own House?  The question was not whether neglecting to attend a Committee was contempt of the House or not; the question was, whether disobedience to the order of the House did or did not constitute a contempt of the authority of the house.

The resolution having been put, was carried by 133 to 13.