Hansard's Parliamentary Debates

"Hansard; which forms an invaluable and indispensable appendage to our national annals, and “contains a vast mass of curious information.”

It is hardly necessary to add, that a Work which has been thus spoken of, and which, in consequence, has found its way into most of the great Public and Private Libraries, not only of the United Empire but of Europe and America, will continue to be conducted with that activity and perseverance which a reception so flattering is calculated to produce. As a book of Reference it is, and will continue to be, "indispensable.”

In addition to the Debates of both Houses, the work contains an invaluable collection of Parliamentary Papers, consisting of many hundred Reports, Estimates, Returns, Protests, Petitions, Treaties, Conventions, Lists of Divisions, &c. & ·. ; together with a regular Series, for the last twenty-five years, of Accounts, relative to the Finances and to the Trade and Navigation of the United Kingdom. These documents are exact copies of those laid before Parliament. They are to be met with in no other publication, and will be found eminently convenient and useful to the Reader: to whom, indeed, if his attention be at all turned to subjects of Political Economy, they are indispensably necessary.

The Works formerly published under the titles of "The Parliamentary Abstract,” and "The Parliamentary Digest" being now discontinued by the gentlemen who undertook them, it is the intention of Mr. Hansard to supply their place by a selection, in addition to the usual Finance Accounts, of such other Accounts, Papers, Reports, &c., as may, from their nature, possess more than a temporary interest; and thus, from resources and assistance peculiarly his own, to form a volume of great importance in Political, Statistical, Commercial, and Financial affairs. Finding also that others have taken to themselves some merit by the insertion of what was an original feature of this work, he has been induced to resume it; and to give, in a condensed form, the minor proceedings of each day, under the head of "MINUTES," wherever they can be of use either as matter of immediate information to the parties interested, or of future reference.

To compete, in point of rapidity of publication, with the daily Journals, was never the object of this Work; neither, with the necessary attention to accuracy in its details, would it ever be possible. To send it out in such detached portions as was consistent with a due regard to accuracy and general utility, was the paramount consideration; and to this object our endeavours have been always assiduously directed.

That such a work should have proceeded thus prosperously, for a quarter of a century, without calling forth imitators and competitors, was neither to be expected nor desired. Accordingly, during that period, no fewer than eighteen candidates for public favour have started up, in all shapes and sizes, from the humble twelves up to the unwieldy folio-some promising to give a more condensed and some a more elongated account of the proceedings in Parliament. The greater part of them, however, dropped still-born from the press: five expired even before the Easter recess; and only three weathered out more than a single Session. The last of this description has been dragging on a lingering existence, the period of which it can be no difficulty to foresee.

The Proprietors of "HANSARD'S PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES" have thought it due to themselves and to their friends to say thus much. They have only to add, that no pains shall be spared to render it for the future, what it has hitherto been pronounced, by such high authority, to be; namely, "one of the most useful and best-conducted works; and an indispensable part of all collections of English History."

Such Members of the two Houses as may have Communications for the Work, are requested to forward them to MR. HANSARD, Paternoster Row, within five or six days after the Debate to which such communications have reference has taken place.

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