Chapter XL: {george IV. 1830—1831} (1)

State of Parties..... Meeting of Parliament..... Motion for
a Committee of the whole House on the State of the
Nation..... Reduction of the Salaries of Public Officers,
&c. Motion for revising the whole System of
Taxation..... Committee on the East India Company’s
Charter..... Debate on the Proposal to alter the
Currency..... Financial Statements..... Bill for Repealing
the Duty on Beer, &c. The Question of Reform..... The
Case of East Retford, &c. Mr. O’Connel’s Bill for
Reform by Universal Suffrage and Vote by Ballot, &c.
Bill for Removing the civil Disabilities affecting the
Jews..... Bill for Capital Punishment in Cases of
Forgery..... Bill for Amending the Law of Libel, &c.
Alterations in Courts of Justice..... Illness of the
King..... Bill to authorize the adhibiting of the Sign
Manual by a Stamp..... Death of the King, and Accession of
the Duke of Clarence, William IV...........

STATE OF PARTIES.

{A.D. 1830}

At the commencement of this year, government found itself in a new and unsafe position. It had carried the great party question of Catholic emancipation, but in so doing it had lost the confidence of a large body of its most faithful adherents. Ministers had, it is true, on the other hand, gained the seeming support of their old enemies of the opposition; but this could not be depended upon. The Whigs were willing to lend them such assistance as would prevent the necessity of seeking a reconciliation with the offended Tories; but they were not willing to concede even this, except as the means of gradually introducing themselves into an equal share of power. They assented to a coalition in parliament; but the price of this assent was coalition in office. In a word, their policy was to aid the government with their countenance and their votes, so far as it would be sufficient to keep it alive, but by no means to give it the robustness and vigour of perfect health. On the other hand, the Duke of Wellington was willing to use them as supporters; but he was not disposed to extend to them an equal share of power. It was his wish, indeed, to be reconciled to his old friends; and, therefore, he stood aloof from a more intimate connexion with the Whigs, that he might keep open the door of reconciliation to the former. He flattered himself, that as each of the two divisions of his adversaries would be unwilling to drive him for the preservation of the ministry into the arms of the other, he might command the occasional assistance of both, to an extent sufficient to enable him to govern without placing himself in the power of either. But this was chimerical. The Tories showed no inclination to trust men whom they considered as their betrayers, and they resisted them as statesmen who had abused their power, and coalesced with their political antagonists, to force upon the country a measure contrary to its opinions, interests, and institutions. They resisted them, also, as politicians who, to effect their purpose had abandoned their tenets, betrayed and surprised their own confiding adherents, and introduced as a principle into the conduct of government, that everything was to be granted which was demanded by clamorous agitation. Between the Tories and the Whigs, the distance was not greater than between the Tories and the ministry; and perhaps it was not even so great, as the Whigs had not betrayed their opponents. The Duke of Wellington, indeed, seems to have had some fear that the two parties might coalesce, in order to effect his expulsion from power. Nor was this fear without foundation. Neither party was in heart his friends; and his own conduct had at once furnished the motives to such an union, and removed one irreconcileable point of difference between the parties whose union he feared. Moreover, in itself the ministry was without the means of making any commanding figure in the house of commons. With the exception of Mr. Peel, who filled the post of leader in that house, there was no man who could fight their battles of debate with any degree of talent and vigour, no one that held any high place in public opinion, either for oratory or information. Finally, the ministry increased their unpopularity by prosecutions for libel arising out of the Catholic relief bill. While that bill was pending, the press had given birth to much vehement and angry discussion, and some of the papers having gone beyond the bounds of allowable invective, the attorney-general resolved to crush them by ex-officio informations. But these prosecutions were received with an universal dislike by all parties in the country; and the temper in which the Whig attorney-general conducted them, gave a severe blow to his public character, and increased the unpopularity of the government.

MEETING OF PARLIAMENT.

Parliament was opened by commission on the 4th of February. The royal speech expressed satisfaction at the conclusion of war between Russia and the Ottoman Porte, and alluded to the embarrassing affairs of Portugal. Concerning the prevailing distress, it remarked:—“His majesty laments that, notwithstanding an indication of active commerce, distress should prevail among the agricultural and manufacturing classes in some parts of the United Kingdom. It would be most gratifying to the paternal feelings of his majesty to be enabled to propose for your consideration measures calculated to remove the difficulties of any portion of his subjects, and at the same time compatible with the general and permanent interests of his people. It is from a deep solicitude for those interests that his majesty is impressed with the necessity of acting with extreme caution in reference to this important subject. His majesty feels assured that you will concur with him in assigning due weight to the effect of unfavourable seasons, and to the operation of other causes which are beyond the reach of legislative control or remedy.” This qualified admission of the existence of national distress gave great offence in both houses of parliament. In the lords, Earl Stanhope moved as an amendment to the address, “That this house views, with the deepest sorrow and anxiety the severe distress which now afflicts the country, and will immediately proceed to examine into its cause, and into the means of effectually providing the necessary relief.” His lordship said that a more inappropriate and unsatisfactory speech had never been addressed to any public assembly. The speech said that distress existed “in some parts” of the country: he asked, in what part it did not exist? The kingdom, he asserted, was in a state of universal distress, embracing alike agriculture, manufactures, trade, and commerce. These great interests had never before at one time been at so low an ebb, nor in a condition which demanded more imperatively the prompt and energetic interference of parliament. The speech ascribed the distress existing, so far as it had admitted it, to unfavourable seasons. This of course operated upon grain; but was the effect of unfavourable seasons usually visible in a reduction of price? Did a bad harvest make corn cheap? The evil was so notorious that nobody but his majesty’s ministers doubted its existence, and they could not deny it, if they only cast their eyes around, and saw the counties pouring on them every kind of solicitation for relief. Why then was inquiry evaded or denied? It was not true that the causes of distress were placed beyond the reach of parliament, it was parliament that had produced them, and yet ministers now wished parliament to disregard the effects, and treat the public distress with indifference. The amendment moved by Earl Stanhope was supported by the Duke of Richmond, and the Earls of Carnarvon and Winchilsea. The Earl of Carnarvon declared that the address called upon them to pledge themselves to statements inconsistent with truth, and declared that he would never lend his countenance to the fallacious representations of mere partial distress, as set forth in the speech. That speech, he said, did not contain one word of the true causes of the country’s suffering; but gravely desired them to take “the state of the seasons” into their consideration. He contended that no small part of the distress was owing to the change in the currency. There had been periods of distress in former times, but they had soon passed away. Now, however, the kingdom was placed in very different circumstances, as the circulation of specie was no longer commensurate with the demand. He suggested that a silver standard should be adopted, by which he conceived that the resources of the country would be emancipated from the artificial fetters in which they were now bound, and prove sufficient to feed the now starving population. The Earl of Winchilsea said, that, if the house refused to take the distress into consideration, an opinion would be forced on the country, that it was unable to legislate for the public good. A spirit was springing up, he said, in different parts of the country, for forming associations, not to lay the grievances of the people before parliament, but to propose remedies of their own, and to redress their own wrongs. To that spirit, he contended, their lordships would be supplying encouragement if they refused to institute an inquiry into the nature and causes of the existing distress. The amendment was opposed by Lord Goderich, the Marquis of Lansdowne, and the Duke of Wellington. Lord Goderich said that the true object of its noble mover was to get rid of the alterations lately introduced into our commercial system, and to unsettle the basis on which the currency now stood. For his own part he had never been able to learn, from the opponents of what was called “Free Trade,” what that was which they denounced under that name. The noble mover seemed to menace by it the refusal to foster domestic agriculture by prohibiting the importation of foreign wool. That refusal was no modern invention. It was not till 1819 that the importation of foreign wool had been prohibited; and the duty then laid was imposed merely for the purposes of revenue, and not as a protection to trade. The Duke of Wellington said that much more had been made out of the expressions in the speech, concerning the bad seasons, than was meant. It was not set down as the only cause of distress, but was alluded to as one circumstance not to be lost sight of: there had been one bad harvest, and another had been attended, in getting it in, with unusual expense; these were facts to be taken into consideration. Another cause of distress, he said, “was to be found in the state of our manufactures: this it was to which his majesty alluded, when he spoke of me operation of causes beyond the reach of legislative control. Were not, he asked, competition at home and abroad, the introduction of machinery, and the general adoption of steam, calculated to produce distress among our manufacturers? Yet could parliament prevent competition? Could it prohibit the use of machinery, and the application of steam, all of which, by throwing labourers out of employment, produced distress? But,” his grace continued, “I am satisfied that the distress is not universal; that there are parts of the country free from it. The exports of last year had been greater than they had ever been before; and there was not a canal or railway in the country which did not present an increase of traffic. It was true, no doubt, that all this had been done at small profits; but profits there must have been, otherwise the traffic would not exist. Pressure upon the country there certainly was; but not so great as to prevent it from rising, though slowly. The country was not stationary; much less was it falling; it was improving.” His grace in continuance said, that he could not agree with the supporters of the amendment, that what distress existed was to be ascribed to the restricted circulating medium to a metallic currency. There was no foundation in fact for such an opinion: the circulation was greater now than before the restriction, and therefore the distress could not be properly attributed to a deficient circulation. The Marquis of Lansdowne opposed the amendment because its true object was to bring the house to the adoption of one of the greatest evils which this country had ever endured, an unlimited issue of a paper circulation. If the first were taken, it would lead to subsequent steps, against which it was his duty to guard the house and the public. Distress, he added, unquestionably existed to a lamentable extent; but he concurred in the recommendation that it should receive the most cautious attention. On a division the amendment was lost by a majority of seventy-one against nine.

In the commons the battle on this subject was much more fierce than in the lords. An amendment to the address was moved by Sir Edward Knatchbull, founded, as in the lords, on the alleged misrepresentation contained in the speech regarding the distresses of the country, and the consequent determination of ministers to adopt no measures either of inquiry or relief. Sir Edward Knatchbull contended that the distress was universal; and if he were called upon for other proof than that of his own testimony, he would say, “Let every member who now hears me state honestly and fairly, and without reserve, what is the situation of the place with which he as a representative is immediately connected.” The house was asked on this first day of the session to approach his majesty with a declaration something like a downright falsehood. He did not mean, however, to advert at present to any remedy for the distress. All he asked was this, to state in their address to his majesty the naked truth as to the distress of the country. He therefore moved to strike out of the address the clause affirming existence of partial distress, and to insert the following:—“We lament the existence of that distress which your majesty informs us is confined to some places; but in the painful discharge of our duty we are constrained to declare to your majesty that that distress is not confined to some places, as your majesty has been advised, but is general among all the productive interests of the country, which are severely suffering from its pressure. We beg to assure your majesty that we shall adopt the caution which your majesty recommends in the consideration of the measures to be adopted in reference to these interests, and that our earnest endeavours shall be employed to alleviate and remove the distress now so unfortunately existing.” The amendment was supported by Messrs. Western, Protheroe, Davenport, Maberly, Duncombe, and R. Palmer, who all joined in condemning the extenuating phraseology used by government, as either being the result of gross ignorance regarding the true state of the country, or betokening a reprehensible determination to propose no measure of relief, and to institute no inquiry. The house, it was said, had long been in the habit of hearing complaints from individual classes in the country; but these complaints were no longer reiterated from the old quarters. The productive and industrious classes of the community were in a state of great misery; their distress was settling-down into universal discontent, and the voice of their disaffection would soon be heard, he said, with alarm. It was urged, also, that the pressure was severe on the classes immediately above the industrial portion of the community; and that those who dealt in manufactured goods were in no better situation than the agriculturists. It was stated in proof of this, that among the great body of the traders in the city of London, their stocks had suffered a depreciation of forty per cent. Sufferings so general, it was argued, affecting every interest of importance throughout the country, could not be the result of local causes. The amendment, it was said, corrected a most erroneous representation of a matter of fact, and it pledged parliament to nothing more than a cautious inquiry into the origin of the state of things which in fact existed. On the other hand the chancellor of the exchequer maintained, that no amendment had ever been moved so little at variance with the speech to which it was intended to apply; and that, although there was distress among both agriculturists and manufacturers in some parts of the kingdom, other parts were in a comparatively flourishing and prosperous state. Mr. Goulburn contended that there was great agricultural prosperity enjoyed in Ireland. This called up Mr. O’Connell, who denied that such was the case. He had, he said, travelled through the provinces of Leinster, Connaught, and Munster, where he not only had not seen proofs of prosperity, but had observed much distress. Mr. Huskisson supported the amendment, thereby giving the signal for his friends to divide against the ministry. It was of the greatest importance, he said, in the present season of universal disquietude and dissatisfaction, not to provoke a hostile discussion between the representatives of the people and the people themselves, and not to call down reproach on the house of commons by understating the distress and difficulty of the time. He believed that the country, in so far as the productive classes were concerned, was suffering greatly; and that if parliament looked at the subject properly, and acted with the caution which one part of the speech recommended, they would find themselves fully competent to cope with the existing difficulties. To some of the causes which had led to the distress parliament could apply no remedy; but it was in their power to satisfy the country as to what those causes were, and to afford a partial relief by giving a better direction to the capital of the country. Mr. Peel expressed surprise that Mr. Huskisson should support an amendment like the present, considering his long-expressed opinions. Session after session Mr. Huskisson had resisted commissions of inquiry, lest he should excite false expectations; and he now supported an amendment founded on principles and intended to lead to conclusions from which he totally dissented, because he thought it stated a matter of fact somewhat more correctly than did the speech itself. Mr. Peel then contended that the speech did not misstate facts; but proved the non-existence of universal distress by the increase of the internal and foreign trade of the country. Several members expressed their intention to vote for the address, although they believed the distress to be more general than the speech represented. As for the Whigs, they were divided between their wish not to leave the ministry, which showed a leaning towards them, exposed to defeat, and the fear of endangering their popularity by appearing to be indifferent to public suffering. Lord Althorp, for instance, was sorry to give a vote which might give him the appearance of joining the opponents of government; but found it to be his duty to vote for the amendment, because he believed the distress to be universal. Mr. Brougham, also said his vote for the amendment was wrung from him, because he thought it more correctly represented the state of things; but if he could bring himself to think that the effect of the amendment would be to displace the present government, he would vote for the address. Mr. Spring Rice expressed himself to the same effect. But these declarations of the leading members of opposition did not prevent their adherents from carrying their votes to the ministry; and the amendment was negatived by a majority of one hundred and fifty-eight against one hundred and five.

On the following day, when the report on the address was brought up, the Marquis of Blandford moved that the following extraordinary amendment, which he termed, “a wholesale admonition to the throne,” should be appended to the address:—“That this house feels itself called upon, in the awful and alarming state of universal distress into which the landed, commercial, and all the great productive interests of the country are at this moment plunged, to take care that your majesty shall not be the only person in your dominions ignorant of such an astounding fact, as well as of the consequent impending danger to the throne and other great national institutions, established by the wisdom of our ancestors for the protection and benefit of the people over whom your majesty has been called to preside,”—“That this house is at no loss to indicate the real cause of this most unnatural state of things; and, in justice to your majesty and the whole nation, it can no longer hesitate to proclaim that cause to the world.

“It is a fact, already too notorious, that this house, which was intended by our ancient and admirable constitution to be the guardian of the nation’s purse, has, from causes now unnecessary to be detailed, been nominated for the greater part by a few proprietors of close and decayed boroughs, and by a few other individuals who, by the mere power of money employed in means absolutely and positively forbidden by the laws, have obtained a ‘domination,’ also expressly forbidden by act of parliament, over certain other cities and boroughs in the United Kingdom.

“That, in consequence of this departure from the wisdom of our ancestors, the nation has been deprived of its natural guardian, and has in consequence become so burdened in the expensive establishments of all kinds, that, in a period much shorter than the life of man, the taxation, has risen from £9,000,000 to nearly £60,000,000 a year, and the poor-rates, or parochial assessments, during the same period, have augmented from £1,500,000 to £8,000,000 annually.

“That to render such a mass of taxation, so disproportionate to the whole wealth of the kingdom, in any degree supportable, recourse has been had, either from ignorance or design, to the most monstrous schemes in tampering with the currency, or circulating money of the country, at one time by greatly diminishing the value of the same, and at another time by greatly augmenting such value; and at each and every of such changes, which have been but too often repeated, one class of the community after another has been plunged into poverty, misery, and ruin; while the sufferers, without any fault or folly of their own, have been hardly able to perceive from what hand these calamities have come upon them.

“That under such circumstances, and with this knowledge before its eyes, this house would consider itself lost to every sense of duty towards your majesty, and guilty of treason towards the people, if it did not seize this opportunity of declaring to your majesty its solemn conviction that the state is at this moment in the most imminent danger, and that no effectual measures of salvation will, or can, be adopted until the people shall be restored to their rightful share in the legislation of the country; that is, to their undoubted right, according to the true meaning of the constitution, of choosing members of this house.” This amendment, was seconded by Mr. O’Connell, and Messrs. Western, Protheroe. Messrs. Smith and Davenport, declared themselves favourable to its spirit, although they thought it was injudicious to bring forward a topic of such importance as a mere amendment on an address. Sir Francis Burdett took the same course; and in his speech on this occasion he gave the ministry fair warning that they must either enter into a closer connexion with the Whigs, or no longer count on their support. Sir Francis said, that when he found the prime minister of England insensible to sufferings and distress, painfully apparent throughout the land; when, instead of meeting the calamity with measures of relief, he sought to stifle every important inquiry; when he called that a partial and temporary evil which was both long-lived and universal, he could not look on such a mournful crisis, in which public misfortune was insulted by ministerial apathy, without hailing any prospect of change in the system that produced such a state of feeling. What, he asked, could be said of the ignorance which could attribute the distress to the introduction of machinery, and the application of steam, that noble improvement in the inventions of man, to which men of science and intelligence mainly ascribe our prosperity? He felt a high respect for the abilities of the Duke of Wellington in the field; but he thought that the noble duke did himself equal justice when he said, previous to his taking office, that he should be a fit inmate for a lunatic asylum if he were ever induced to take such a burden on his shoulders. In fact, both he and many honourable members about him had long treated the illustrious individual with such tenderness, because they felt that he had conferred the greatest benefit on his country. He was the only man in England who could have accomplished what he had done; and his praise should be in proportion. It should, however, be at the same time remembered, that if his service was great, his recompense had been commensurate: they had repaid him in returns of confidence and approbation; but the time was come when it would be necessary to do much more. On a division the Marquis of Blandford’s motion was lost by a majority of ninety-six against eleven.

MOTION FOR A COMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE HOUSE ON THE STATE OF THE NATION.

In the debate on the address Lord Stanhope gave notice that he should on an early day bring the state of the country under their lordships’ notice, by a special motion. He did so on the 25th of February, by moving that their lordships should resolve themselves into a committee of the whole house on the state of the nation. The proposition on which his lordship founded his motion was, that all the great productive interests of the country were suffering under the pressure of a distress the tendency of which was to go on increasing. Complaints and applications for relief by the agriculturists, he said, had come up from every county, and they had been disregarded, probably because they were couched in respectful language. He said this, because recent experience had shown that if they had formed illegal associations, collected funds, and spoken to government in the language of intimidation, they would have received attention. Of the reasonableness of their complaints no man could doubt who knew their situation. Rents were paid from the capital of the farmer; and numbers of tenants had already been driven from their farms in bankruptcy and beggary. The capital of others, also, was daily extorted from them to meet their current expenses; and when that capital was exhausted they, too, must go forth ruined men. It had been said, “Reduce your rents, and you will remove the mischief,” But this expedient had been tried, and had failed: rents had been reduced fifty per cent.; but there were cases in which no rent could be paid. He knew of one parish, for instance, in Sussex, where all the proceeds of the land were not sufficient to maintain the poor; and neighbouring parishes had been applied to to give them relief. If the existing state of things was not speedily remedied, they must end in ruin and anarchy. Nor, he continued, was the state of the manufacturing population better than that of the agriculturists. Artisans were at work for threepence or fourpence per day; and of those who received employment, a great proportion worked for wages which, when compared with the value of the article on which they were employed, were altogether deceptive. Then, he asked, what was the state of the shipping interest? To realize profit was out of the question; and many of the shipowners had preferred parting with their ships at a certain loss of forty per cent., to continuing to hold them at the risk of a loss still greater. All these interests were, therefore, at present in a state of apparently hopless distress. As for the symptoms to which ministers pointed as those of returning health, they were utterly fallacious. It had been said that the traffic on railways and canals had been increased; the same effect would be produced if the goods had been transported on speculation, and hawked about from one part of the country to another for sale, either in vain or at ruinous prices. With an increasing population consumption must increase to some extent, because the addition to the population would not absolutely famish; but the evil was, that it was consumption which still furnished to those employed in creating the articles consumed the means, not of living with any reasonable comfort, but of mere squalid starvation. Ministers had told them, likewise, to look at the number of new houses which were springing up, and had asked if this was an indication of distress. No one had ever said that every man in the country was distressed. Who had ever said, for instance, that the fund-holders and annuitants felt the general pressure? They might continue to flourish like rank and noxious weeds among surrounding ruins; they still drew their fixed incomes, but their security was diminishing; for that security depended on the productiveness of the revenue; and the revenue, as the natural result of the misery of all the productive classes of society, was fall ing off. Lord Goderich, in reply, said that he had expected the motion would have been supported by something better than the two undeniable propositions that there was great distress in the country, and that it was the duty of ministers to relieve it to the utmost of their power. He should have thought that the noble mover would have stated the causes which had produced the distress of the country, and have given some notion of the remedies which he deemed applicable to the disease. In regard to the one and the other, the house had been left in the dark. While, however, he resisted a mode of inquiry which promised nothing, he did not say that it was impossible for parliament to do anything. In relation to the currency and the state of our taxation, parliament might afford material relief to the country. He thought parliament might also do something by a reduction of taxation; for during the two years that he himself had been chancellor of the exchequer, nine millions of taxes had been removed, and yet that amount had not been eventually lost to the revenue: in some heads of receipt there had been a diminution, but in others there had been an increase. The Earl of Roseberry, also, spoke against the motion: he could not support it, because he thought that in its present form it was neither practicable nor expedient. The motion was supported by the Duke of Richmond and Lord Eldon. The former insisted principally on various facts proving the extent and pressure of the prevalent distress; and maintained that in common sense the causes of the misfortune should be investigated, before means for removing them were tendered. Lord Eldon, in supporting the motion, accused his ancient colleagues of coming down to parliament with a declaration that there were “other causes” for the distress of the country, which they did not deem it expedient to specify, and which they left to each one’s sagacity to guess at as he might. He contended that the smallest consideration of the causes and remedies of the present all-pervading distress would have been received by the country with gratitude. He was the more confident of this, he said, when he bore in mind the pacific and loyal demeanour of the numerous thousands who were suffering under the most pinching distress, and who, he hoped, would be prevented from being drawn away from the line of good conduct by the expressed determination of parliament to inquire into the causes of their sufferings, with a view to remedy them so far as circumstances might permit. The Duke of Wellington still denied that the existence of distress was so extensive as had been represented, and supported his opinion by the augmented consumption of various articles, by the increase of buildings, by the state of the savings’ banks, and by the advanced traffic on railways and canals. He still maintained, also, that the power of redress was beyond the reach of parliament; and he defied noble lords opposite to do anything on the subject which should be at once politic and satisfactory; expedient and efficacious. Was it right, he asked, for parliament to interfere where it was utterly impossible to do good? The noble mover might recommend a committee; but to what end could they follow his counsel if he could lead them no further? And not one step further had he gone. The Marquis of Lansdowne said that he had no hesitation in stating what he conceived to be the causes of the distress. Much of it, he thought, had been produced by a transition from a state of war to peace. He could not help recollecting, however, that a great part of the difficulties, out of which we had now to extricate ourselves, was to be ascribed to that fatal perseverance, with which we had persisted for many years, in contracting permanent money engagements in a depreciated currency. That was the root of the evil; but in saying so, he did not forget, that, unfortunate as these engagements were, they nevertheless were engagements which the honour of parliament was bound to respect, and which we must find means to discharge. It was one thing, however, to see the cause, and another to point out the remedy: for the present he confessed that he saw but one means of uniting all opinions on the subject, and that was retrenchment, retrenchment qualified by diminution of taxation. The Marquis of Salisbury expressed an opinion that a general inquiry would do more harm than good: he would prefer a select committee, and if that should fail in coming at the cause of the distress, then would be the time for an inquiry of the whole house. Lord King, in conclusion, moved as an amendment, “that a select committee should be appointed to inquire into the depressed state of the agricultural and manufacturing interests of the kingdom for the purpose of ascertaining whether any, and what relief could be afforded.” This amendment, however, was received with as little favour as the original motion, which was lost on a division by one hundred and eighteen against twenty-five.

A similar motion was made, at a more advanced period of the session in the house of commons by Mr. Davenport. The discussion in that house lasted four nights, and in the course of it, the leading members of all parties delivered their opinions, which were in many respects contradictory on the extent as well as on the causes of the evil. The arguments and the views of the speakers, however, were generally the same that had been used in the house of lords, though being used by a greater number of persons, they were presented under a greater number of modifications. The motion was supported by the admitted fact of the prevailing distress; the duty of the house to give relief, if possible; and the necessity for that purpose of ascertaining the causes of the evil. On the other hand it was denied that the distress was general, and that if it was, it would be useless to enter into an inquiry without some specific remedy being pointed out, which had not yet been done. Great objections were also taken to the form of the proposed inquiry. There was no subject of any difficulty with which parliament had ever had to deal, but would necessarily come before this committee, and how could the whole house deal with such an investigation. Sir C. Burrell moved as an amendment that the petitions should be referred to a select committee, but this was still more vehemently resisted: Mr. Peel declaring that a committee of the whole house was the better of the two. Lord Althorp, with the leading members of the Whig party generally, as well as Mr. Huskisson and his followers, took part with the ministry; and the motion was eventually lost by a majority of two hundred and fifty-five against eighty-seven.

REDUCTION OF SALARIES OF PUBLIC OFFICERS, ETC.

Throughout the discussions on the state of the nation, the necessity of reducing taxation, and curtailing the public expenditure, had been insisted on with great force. On the 12th of February, Sir James Graham moved for a reduction of all the salaries paid to official, persons. The foundation of his motion was this:—that, subsequently to the Bank Restriction Act, all salaries had been increased, because the expense of living had increased; and he argued, therefore, that, as the restriction had been removed, and we had returned to cash payments, the salaries ought to be diminished. Justice, he said, demanded such a change High prices, produced by a depreciated currency, had brought them high salaries; low prices, produced by curing that depreciation, must bring them low salaries He did not, however, mean to include in his resolutions the privy-purse and the royal establishment, as these stood upon arrangements entered into at the beginning of the reign, and were hence inviolate. Neither would he interfere with the regular pay of the navy, which had been fixed in 1798, when prices were about the same as at the present time; or of the army, into which our soldiers had entered for a term of years, at a stipulated rate. He meant, however, to include military officers holding civil situations, such as colonial governments, because in many cases their salaries had been augmented without sufficient reason, and because some of these officers being removable at pleasure, their allowances might be altered without difficulty. Sir James Graham enumerated examples in which the salaries of governors had been raised; and stated that there had been an addition of one-third to the number of _employés_, and an increase of fifty per cent, on their salaries in 1827 as compared with 1797. He concluded by moving this resolution:—“That, whereas, subsequently to the act of the 37th George III., by which a suspension of cash-payments was effected, large augmentations had taken place in the salaries and pay of persons in civil and military employments, on account of the diminished value of money; and whereas the alleged reason for such augmentations had ceased to operate, in consequence of the passing of the 59th George III., which restored a metallic standard of value, resolved that in order to relieve the country from its extensive load of taxation, it was expedient to revise our present system of expenditure in respect of all such augmentations, for the purpose of making every possible reduction that could be effected without violation of good faith, or detriment to public justice.” The motion was opposed by Mr. Dawson, the secretary of the treasury, chiefly on the ground that government had done all that as yet had been possible in the way of reduction, and felt a sincere desire to carry the spirit of economy to every practicable extent. Almost every recommendation of reduction, he said, suggested in the reports of committees, or by commissions of inquiry, had been carried into effect; and the recommendation of a committee which sat in 1797 to abolish sinecures and reversions had been acted upon as far as it was found possible. Government had, indeed, already acted upon the course which Sir James Graham recommended; it had been desirous to adopt the scale of 1797, and though that object had not been fully accomplished, yet, looking at the extent of public business now, and in 1797, he thought the house would see that salaries had been brought as near as possible to the rate of the latter year. After demonstrating the truth of his assertions by appealing to facts and figures, he said, that he trusted the house would negative the motion, in which case, in order to show that he was not desirous to get rid of the question, he would himself move the following resolution:—“That whereas his majesty was graciously pleased, in answer to an address of the house, to assure the house on the 27th of June, 1821, that his majesty would cause an inquiry to be made into all the departments of the civil government, with a view of reducing the number of persons employed in the various offices, and the amount of salaries paid: Resolved, that an humble address be presented to his majesty, that his majesty might be graciously pleased to lay before the house an account of the progress which had been made in such inquiry, and of the measures that had been taken in consequence. Also, that it was the opinion of that house, that in every establishment of the state, every saving ought to be made, consistently with the due performance of the public service, and without the violation of existing engagements.” Sir James Graham thought this proposition of the secretary of the treasury better than his own, and he therefore withdrew his motion, and the house agreed to that of the minister.

This motion regarded the civil establishments only. On the 15th of February, Mr. Hume proposed a similar resolution in regard to the military and naval establishments, by moving an address to the crown, recommending a repeal or modification of all taxes required for the support of all the naval and military, as well as civil establishments, in order to afford immediate and effective relief to the country. Mr. Hume maintained that the scale at which the army and navy were kept up was much greater than necessity required, or the country could bear; and that they ought to be brought back as nearly as possible to what they had been in 1792, when the whole cost of the civil and military government was little more than one-fifth of the present cost. In his speech, he treated of every possible topic connected with taxation and expenditure. The taxes he proposed to reduce were numerous; and he insisted that all the reductions he proposed were practicable, if government would only apply the priming-knife to our overgrown establishments. The chancellor of the exchequer declined following Mr. Hume over the field in which he had expatiated, but he objected to the motion as irregular and inexpedient. It was a motion, he said, recommending a reduction of our civil, naval, and military establishments, without waiting for the estimates of those establishments which was to be laid before the house—without waiting to see whether any and what reductions might be proposed in them by ministers. How, he asked, would parliament determine the amount or practicability of any reduction, till it had inquired into the necessity and general bearing of the several branches of the expenditure? And how could that inquiry be instituted before ministers had laid before the house the responsible official statement of the amount of the several estimates for the year, so as to enable the house to decide upon the economy or extravagance observed in the management of the public money? He objected to the motion, therefore, as a departure from the usual practice of parliament. It was opposed by Messrs. Western and Grant, on the ground that it would be better for ministers first to produce their plan, and then to deal with it as the house might think fit. The house was already pledged to the full extent of this motion, which was, generally to reduce expenditure, and the next step ought to be to point out in what particular manner the reduction ought to be made. Lord Althorp said, that he felt every confidence in the economical disposition of ministers; but still it was desirable that the house should express its opinion that the taxes ought to be reduced in proportion to the reductions in the expenditure, although he did not conceive it possible that the taxes ought to be reduced to the extent proposed by Mr. Hume: his duty was to vote, therefore, for the motion. On a division, however, the motion was lost by one hundred and eighty-nine to sixty-nine.

MOTION FOR REVISING THE WHOLE SYSTEM OF TAXATION.

On the 25th of March Mr. Poulett Thompson moved the appointment of a committee to revise the whole system of our taxation. His object, he said, was to examine the incidents of our great taxation; for all authorities of any weight were agreed that revenue did not depend merely on the amount of what actually passed into the exchequer, but on the manner in which it was derived from the people. Mr. Poulett Thompson wished the house in the first place to consider the taxes which affected raw materials; and whether a reduction was not practicable without any diminution of revenue. He then passed in review certain very productive taxes, as those on tea, tobacco, foreign spirits, French wines, &c., the rate of which, he thought, might safely be lowered without any permanent detriment to the revenue. In conclusion, he said, that his wish was to give ministers a power which they could not exercise effectually without a committee. The alterations which he had in view, might produce a deficiency of revenue in the first stages of their operations, but ministers, supported by a committee fairly and impartially selected, might ask of parliament a vote of credit for all that would be necessary to fill up that deficiency with a much greater certainty of obtaining it, than they would have by acting upon their Own responsibility. The chancellor of the exchequer said, that there could be only one opinion as to the principle on which the motion was founded; namely, the expediency of raising the money required for the public service, in the way least injurious to the sources of public wealth; but he could not accede to the motion founded on this truism, consistently with the interests of the country, or the character of his majesty’s government. The wish to relieve the public burthens was not the only guide to be followed in a question like this; regard was likewise due to the faith and honour of the country. Some of the taxes might be open to the objections urged against them; but such as they were we had mortgaged them to the public creditor; and it I was an imperative duty, not so to modify them as to shake the basis of his security, and weaken the strength of public credit. Great inconvenience would arise from consigning to the consideration of a committee all the various topics to which the honourable member had referred; and from calling upon the members of it to pronounce on the amount of our taxation; to decide how far it admitted of repeal or modification; and to declare how far, in their opinion, ultimate compensation might be made for any loss which might accrue from such loss or modification. The motion was supported by Lord Althorp, Sir Henry Parnell, and Messrs. Bankes and Warburton, who argued that it was difficult to conceive why the committee should be refused after the appointment of the late finance committee. If that committee had proceeded with its labours another year, it would have been occupied with the very matters which it was now proposed to submit to consideration. Lord Althorp said that, in his opinion, it would be a good plan to grant relief to the productive classes by a reduction of taxation, and the imposition of a property-tax. Mr. Peel protested against the appointment of a committee which, he contended, was to be neither less nor more than a delegation of the powers of the whole house, and of the government likewise, to twenty-one members. The house, he said, had been found sufficient in former times for the management of the taxes, and he saw no reason why it should now resign its power. On the other hand, Mr. Huskisson maintained that there was nothing unusual in referring questions of taxation to a committee. The salt-duty and the tax on leather had been referred to committees; and in these cases there had neither been alarms in the public mind, nor change of government, nor loss of confidence in his majesty’s ministers. If the house could not refer such subjects to a committee without endangering the safety of the country, he thought that it had better give up inquisition altogether. He did not, indeed, expect any further reduction of taxation during the present session from the labours of this committee; but still the inquiry would do good. On a division the motion was lost by a majority of one hundred and sixty-seven against seventy-eight.

COMMITTEE ON THE EAST INDIA COMPANY’S CHARTER.

{GEORGE IV. 1830—1831}