Star. — London, England, 1824-05-14 00:00:00

policy of voegicernment. By , the 31st Geo. lIL all persons Mire sixty years ortge, in public offices, were entitled to superannuation allowances, and such others also as were certified by two physicians to be incapable of sea viesthi Public any longer through ill hralth.— He dm move! the Petition should be lead. Mr. CA LCRAF l' - said he had nothing to blame him self for o this head, having most strenuously opp osed the Bill alluded to, from as conviction that it was a great hardship on a most deserving and meritorious class of public servants. He hoped the .Members of Govern ment would not fail to pay proper attention to the sab ject.—The Petition being read, Mr. Secretary CANNING concurred in the opinion of his Hon. Friend, as to the character given by him of this sort of tas on a class of public servants—(Hear). — There was an awkwardness in men in office defending men in office, but he must say he felt this a particular and partial tax, oppressive to many-meritorious indivi duals, and extremely impolitic. It changed too the tenure by which they held their offices, under the pre text of establishing, by the sacrifice of part of their own funds, a charitable fund ; these were his general opinions on the subject, though he was not prepared to point out what course the Petitioners ought to pursue. The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER agreed that this class of individuals was entitled to every praise and every fair emolument, as the reward of their great and valuable services; yet he must observe the charge alluded to in 1822 had arisen first from the discontinO%: ance of letting official persons receive their salaries prin.., cipally by fees of office, and next by the resolution of the House to discontinue sinecure places. All this had naturally diminished the means of reward, and of course rendered it necessary to increase the retired or super annuated lists. Abuses crept into this system, and places were filled up without due regard to length of service or standing. To remedy these inconveniencies the Act 41 1810 was passed. Then followed that Act which rave the retired allowance as a right to the clerk 4—a sort of quid pro quo, or absolute future considera tion for a temporary sacrifice. He must differ with his Right Honourable Friend in thinking this was a para.. cular or partial case, for there was not a seaman who did not contribute to Greenwich Hospital part of his, pay, in return for which he in the same way had a right to apply for maintenance in old age to the Chest at Greenwich. He should say no mote on the subject now, but state his opinion that it was by no means ano malous, or so great a hardship as it had been considered. Whatever the House might think, he confessed he did not feel there were such strong objections to the fund thus created as to induce to wish an alteration in the law. Mr. F. BUXTON said that these persons had been trea ed with peculiar hardship and injustice: he deemed the case one of much severity, and that it merited the consideration of the House. In 1821 the Clerks, by the arrangement then established, were subjected to a de duction from their salaries of 25 per cent. and then came the deduction of five per cent. for a fund, by the measure of 1822. He deemed it unjust and severe. Mr. Secretary PEEL bore testimony to the merit of the class of persons affected by the measure. The mea sure had been resolved on when lie came into office; and he could not object to it, as it was to be extended to all the offices. At the same time, he must remind the House that the measure was peculiarly their own ; that it had been forced on the Government, as it were, by the House, on the declaration that the Agricultural and other Interests had suffered,- while the Clerks, &c. retained their income, and-that therefore the whole ques tion ought to be left to the feeling of the House. Mr. P. GRENFELL said that these public servants were badly paid. Mr. H. SWINE* and Mr. W.TArt,oa spoke to the like effect. Mr. HUME remarked, that certainly they had not to calculate on having had the vote of the Honourable Member for Surrey ; be had never voted for any re trenchment ; but he thought the House bad been led away from the true question. The Petition did not complain of the reduction of the salaries ; it only com plained of the five per cent. reduction, and that was advisable for the due protection of the families. The measure gave the Clerks a sort of claim to superan nuation, and this fund, it was calculated, paid about half the superannuations. He thought the fund a fair one. He viewed it as a Tontine. Mr. HUSKISSON said, it was a measure of common humanity to make provision for worn out public ser vants. In the Customs the average length of service of the officers who had been so provided for was twenty nine years; and the average amount of provision was £94 a year. He would ask the House, was that too laige a provision for persons who had spent their lives l in the service of the public ?—(Hear, hear.) Sir THOMAS BARING supported the Petition. He felt convinced that the subordinate officers of the Crown were not adequately paid for their efficient services. Mr. T. WILSON said, he would be happy to hate The subject inquired into, with a view of doing justice to the public officers, whose salaries had been reduced in a time of great public distress—(Hear.) Mr. S. WORTLEY said, from the feeling mani fested by the House, he would, as soon as possible, bring the subject under its consideration. The Petition was ordered to be printed. SUGARS. Mr. W. WHITMORE said, his object was for the appointment of a Select Committee to inquire into the nature of the Sugar Bounties and Drawbacks. The West India Merchants had a monopoly of the home supply of sugars, while the East India sugar paid a duty of 10s. more than that of the West Indies. There was a duty of 30s. when sugar was 40s. the cwt. and of 275. when it was below 40s. There was an extra bounty of 3s. per cwt. on the export of sugar. Upon all these sub jects inquiry was highly necessary, because the price had been lowered to the consumer abroad, but not to the consumer at home. Last year there was consumed in this country 3,330,000 cwt. of sugar, and that was a tax on the people of 1,100,000/. When bounties were given up in all other cases, he could not see why they should be kept up with respect to sugar ; but if conti nued they should be directed to a proper object. Every one knew the distress prevailing in the West Indies. It was proper to consider whether that distress was of a temporary or a permanent nature, and whether they could not find a remedy, or at least a palliative, for it. He apprehended that the distress was permanent, rather than temporary. This he had heard from Mr. Bryan Edwards, and other authorities, ever since the year 1792. All these preyed that distress was the rule, and prosperity the exception. The effect of, this must be depopulation in the end. It was, there fore, the duty of the House to inquire into this ex traordinary state of things. This was required by the importance of the subject, and the high respectability of the parties in question. He should now state the causes which he conceived produced this distress.— Some of these were the absence of owners from their estates, and mortgages on them. These, however, were bat subordinate anises, the great one being the existence of. Slave labour. It was not now observed, for the first time, that Slave labour was always infinitely more costly than free labour. There must be an inducement to labour, for it was not natural to man ; he must' either feel an interest in it, or be forced to it ; and it remained to be seen which would most conduce to the latest quantum of labour. In free labour, a man bad Ise application of his own earnings, which was a power ful induceinent to him—not so the Slave. Besides, where a man worked by compulsion, it was less in quan tity, and deficient in quality to that performed by free men. This had been remarked by travellers in North America, in comparisons between the lands cultivated by Slaves, and those under the tillage of free men. In Pennsylvania, where labour was flee, the land was worth one third more than in Virginia, where slavery prevailed ; and in Maryland it was one half more in value. He instanced the , case of the Hon. J. Steele, who, being embarrassed, went over, to see whether his embarrassment had not arisen from the bad manage ment of the Overseers of his estates in Barbadoes.— Being a man of sense, and unfettered by prejudice, he thereby produced such a change as retrieved his affairs. He next instanced the case of Sierra Leone, which, being peopled by tree Blacks, was increasing in population, to morals, civilization, and 'comfort—roads, houses, churches, and trade, were all increasing. • The natives, .even from the river Niger, traded with that Colony ; and all these things proved the progress of the human tnind;*hen the man was left free. This was also proved from the prosperous state of the trade of Hayti, and he denied the assertion of the Secretary for the Colonies, in another House, that they now imported Sugar, instead of exporting it, as formerly. Without resorting to free labour, the prosperity of our West India Islands could never lie restored. The money raised by the bounties on sugar, from the people or this country, be proposed to be applied to a fund for the emancipation of the slaves in the West Indies. For all these reasons he implot the House to giant him the Committee for which he had moved, and he.should distinctly limit its present inquiry into the effect which it would have on the bounties on sugar; but in a future Committee it might. be an inquiry as to how that sum might be better em ployed. He then moved, that a Select Committee be appointed to enquire into the operation of the bounties paid upon the export.of Sugar. Mr. HUSKISSON rose, and said, that as so large a proportion of his Honourable Friend's speech related to the great question of slavery, and so small a pottion to that specific question which his notice of motion really involved, he hoped it would not be expected either of him or the House to embark, and more especially w ith out notice, in the consideration of the larger and irre gularly introduced subject—one which they would, he was convinced, think with him had better not be dis cussed incidentally, but upon a regular notice, such as would enable the House to meet so portentous a dis cussion in the manner which best suited its gravity and importance—(cries of Hear). Indeed, he was of opinion, that far better and more prudent it would be, for all practical purposes, to leave the question of the Slave Trade, as Parliament had confided it by mutual con sent, in the bands of the Executive Government—(Hear). He should therefore confine his observations shortly to what had fallen front his lion. Friend, respecting the la bour of cultivation in the West Indies being carried on by human beings in a state of slavery, and that the conse quence was the destruction of the interests of the proprie tors, as well as the misery inflicted on those under them. His Honourable Friend had affirmed the general rule to be, that distress was the habitual condition of West In dian property, and prosperity the exception; and he had illustrated his position by travelliw.4 through the history for forty years, from the time of the prosperity arising out of the great convulsion in the island of St. Do mingo, to the distress which followed when the high ex citement that led to that prosperity had ceased, and the revulsion in value, its necessary attendant, became felt. Now, taking for a moment his Honourable Friend's premises, that the ger.eral condition of West Indian property was one of distress to the extent he had de scribed, without assuming, however, his cause for that condition — a cause, however, that he might admit had necessarily its operation to a certain degree in producing the effect ascribed to it—still he could not go along with him in the conclusion which he had drawn from these premises, or in thinking that the measure which he pro posed would administer the relief he imagined. His Ho nourable Friend was sanguine (and he wished to Got) his hopes could be realized) that there might be created a great facility, in the manner he had pointed out, in converting compulsory labour into free labour. But most not they look beforehand at the consequences?— And when they did, must they not see that before these salutary advantages could be obtained, all the aids of improved moral intelligence, all the motives to good action, must be well inculcated and well understood, before they'could hope to secure for the slave popula tion that benefit which a change in their condition was intended to realise for them ?—( flear.) His Honour able Friend had said that the duty was 275. on each cwt. of sugar, and that, from the nature of the boun ties, the drawback was averaged upon a duty of 30, he had also argued, that when the price was 475. the duty was taken only on 375. He had also said that 1121 b. of sugar, as impoited, would make 561 b. of refined sugar for home consumption. He was convinced that if his Honourable Friend had looked with more ewe into all the details of calculation which the subject involved, he would find himself much mistaken in many of the essential parts of his estimate, and necessarily wrong in the conclusions which he drew from them. Besides, he had overlooked the fluctuation between the bounties and the duties which had occurred, as the law stood, during the period which his calculation professed to cover. If, therefote, these errors had entered into his calculations, why call for their correction by the appointment of " a Committee ? It was a dry matter of fact, capable of elucidation without taking any such course; and being so, he saw no parliamentary ground laid for the appointment of a Committee, which in the present state of the West Indian inte rests was calculated still more to embarrass those engaged in the trade, in all their fiscal and pecu niary arrangements. He must repeat, that the sense of Parliament having been already expressed upon the great West India question, and is being understood that it was left to the consideration of the executive Govern ment, and intrusted to their responsibility, it would be in the exercise of a sounder discretion, not to deal with it by incidental debates, either in or out of Committees, but to leave it where he thought it could be most prac tically viewed—(Hear, hear). —When his Honourable Friend said that by his proposed arrangement a fund for emancipation might be created, amounting to no less a sum than 1,100,060/. he again greatly overshot the mark, for the actual amount of. the difference to which he alluded, as paid into the Exchequer, did not exceed from 1120,0001. to 150,0001. Taking, however, that part of his Honourable Friend's proposition, he must s say that it ought to be prolipunded in a different shape. If that change in the condition of the Slave population were to be effected by a fiscal measure of economy considered in the way his Honourable Friend had put it, then let it be broadly put to Parliament, whether they were ready to work what might be deemed a salutary change, and to pay such an amount in cash to the masters, to purchase the emancipation of such a number of Slaves? As to what his Honourable Friend had said respecting the prosperity of Sierra Le• one under a different system, did he mean to say that what was practical in the education, discipline, and in ternal regulations and improvements of a small Co lony so placed, and so paid for, could be practically introduced, and with equal practicability managed, when transplanted and applied to the condition of the West Indian population of 800,000 Slaves?—(Hear).-- •I'he distinction between the two cases was obvious, and need not be further argued. That the comme:cial policy of Great Britain was altering, was indeed clear. His Honourable Friend could not be unaware of the immense change which was now working in the old commercial system of the world, by the recent events which had occurred, and were still in progress, in the new world. A great commercial country like this, must more or less adapt her policy to a state of things which arose in these huge and important colonies, which had separated themselves flout their previous state of , European dependence. New interests were created, and still creating, and England must regulate her po licy according to circumstances, many of which were not yet fully developed. This again was a point of discs -pion into which he thought it would be improper for h:m incidentally to embark with his Honourable Friend, for these reasons he trusted the House would agree with him, that there was no necessity for ap pointing a Committee to ascertain facts which were not in dispute, :ind more pat ticularly for the purpose of dis cussing conclusions vr hich could not fail to awaken jea lousies and alarms which it were more prudent not at the present moment to excite—(Hear ) WHITNIORE, in reply, denied that they were agreed upon facts, and offered to verify that denial in a Committee. W:th respect to the difference of the amount of payments in the Exchequer—it did not follow, that because the money was not paid into tote Exchequer, that therefore it was not drawn out of the pocket of the consumer. He would not, certainly, press his motion ag:.inst the sense of the House. The motion was then put, and negatived without a division. SALT MITI LS. Mr. WODEIIOUSE rose to bring forward hi; mo tion for the continuance of the Salt Duties. He stated that the object of his motion was, to see how far it Was practicable to continue the Duties on Salt, with a view to an exemption from the Window Tax. He was aware that it was generally supposed that a pledge had been given for the repeal of this tax. but he did not see how any such notion ought to prevail. Parliament was bound to act according to events, and to pledge itself to any line of conduct without qualification was not only to, stultify themselves, but to oppose the very object of their institution. He was aware that the chief objet- Lion to this duty arose from the Excise regulations which accompanied it. He felt it to be his duty to refer to Mr. Carr, the Solicitor of Excise. This Gentleman had been examined before the Committee of Criminal Laws, and he stated that it was a principle that, where low duties were fixed, low penalties necessarily at tached ; and where high duties were fixed, high penal ties of coarse were necessary. The first point to which he would call the attention of the House was, the num ber of absurdities in the laws which regarded the Salt Duties of England and Ireland. It .could be a great object to find out if an amendment could not be made in the laws in this respect. He (Nlr. Wodehouse) also wished to impress on the House the propriety of di minishing the expense of the collection, which amounted to 15,000/. on 800,0001. The next pint to which he, would advei t, was the great reduction in the number of Excise prosecutions. The number of prosecutions in the Court of Exchequer in 1819 was 37; the penalties arising from them was 2,4001. In 1324, the number of prosecutions was only four, and the amount of pe nalties received was 11. 18s. Si. He believed it would be found that smuggling in salt was entirely done away with. He had a notion of submitting to the Chancellor of the Exchequer some facts on this sub ject. lie had intended to bring a deputation of smug glers before the Right lion. Gentleman---(A laugh). lle believed it woulJ be found that the trade in the smuggling of salt was now entirAy at an end. In Che shire he believed this was found to be the case, and he believed it was equally so in Yarmouth. With respect to the fisheries, he was ready to assist them as far as he could consistently with the general good. He did not think that fishing could be carried to an indefinite ex tent. Nothing was more precarious than that trade. Sometimes the fish did not come, and when they came, it remained to raise a bargain for disposing of them. He now came to the consideration of the use of salt for' agricultural purposes. He dwelt on the absurdity of requiring a certificate, and contended that it should be expunged from the Statute. He believed that the ad vantage of using salt in farming was very. much ex aggerated. On this subject they might expect to hear much valuable info, mation from the Honourable Mem ' ber for Cumbetland. He understood that it was the intention of all the Western Members to oppose him on this question. But there was one Honourable ] Member on the other side, whose support he owned he would rather have than that of all those on the same 'side. He meant the Honourable Baronet, the Mem ber for Westminster, because that Honourable Member on a former night wished to appropriate a sum of 1,000,0001. to the poor of Ireland, and he made up that sum, amongst other things, of the produce of the Salt Tax. Therefore he was justified in concluding that the Honourable Baronet would vote for the continuance of , that Tax. He then referred to Mr. Parkes's evidence before the Board of Trade, who stated that the effect of the removal of the duty would be to stimulate people to ' Ivy what way an article of such general application could be put into more extensive use. But what impe diment was there in the existence of a low duty to the general use of the article ? Would the Member for Bodmin say there was any? Let the Honourable Mem ber forget his partiality for pilchards and rise up in the 'dignity of an abstract man, and only say that Mr. Parkes was right, and he (Mr. Wodehouse) would aban don his motion at once. He then recurred to the opinion of a variety of individuals who had given their senti ments on the subject, and contended that there was no reason for supposing that the results anticipated by tho; Gentlemen would follow from the total repeal of the Salt Duties. He then referred to the neat branch of his subject. Everybody must be struck with the enor mous extent to which building was carried in this country. The tax on windows in houses equal from their extent to such a burden, increased every d ay, and he contended that it would be expedient to exempt sm a ll houses from this tax. In order to enable the House to do so, he wished to keep up the Salt Tax. He con. tended that this tax could be shewn to be objectionabl e . He wished to keep up the income of the State. Th e mode of doing k which was least liable to objection w a , that which ought to be preferred by that House. H e should, therefore, beg to move, {{That it is expedient the present rate of duty on Salt should be continued, i ll order to enable his M tjesty's Government to tike off the duty on windows of houses of the first class in t!, e next Session of Parliament." Mr. CARTWRIGHT seconded the m'nion. The SPEAKER having put the question, several Members then rose at once, but _ The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER im. mediately rose amid vies of " Sir Francis Burdett, - who, with some other Members, had risen.—He had 11 apologise, he said, to the Gentlemen on the usher sid e of the House for persisting in his endeavours to presen t himself to its attention before them ; but, standing in tf.e particular situation which he did, as a Minister of 1 1 11 Crown, he was anxious, at this early part of the debate, to declare, without reserve, the opinion which he held with regard to the present motion. Honourable also. bers, he was sure, would do him the jast_.-e to tecollect, that is the statement which he made to them, at the commencement of the Session, he had distinctly info: mei them, that if, in the course of it, there should be a ge neral feeling that the cessation of this tax ought not to take place at the time fixed for. it by law, it would Lot be a difficult task to find other means of affor,:ing re lief to the Public ; but that he w:ls cf opinion that, a; far as himself and the Government were concerned, they were pledged—(Greet cheering, and load cries c . Hear from all sides of the !louse). Ile repeated, that Ministers were specifically pledged to adhere to the law as it now stood—(Loud and repealed cheet jag).— Ile would not go so far as to say that Parliament were pledged to stand by that law, if it were good that the law should be repealed; or that the Govert:meut were bound not to repeal it, if the repeal of it were either good or useful to the Ile had, therefore, on formerly addressing the Hou.,e, qualified the pledge which he had given in this manner—that tl,cte should be a strong general feeling in favour of this tax I , efaie he ventured to propose its coutinuance—(Checring). therefore, any such feeling had been excited, he should have felt himself at liberty to support the motion o f iris Honourable Friend, the Member for Norfolk ; for he agreed with his Honourable Friend in thinking tha: the objections to the continuance of the 2s. duly ca salt had been very much over-rated. Indeed, it wai his opinion that the consumer would not be at all bene fited by the repeal of it—(fiear, hear). It was hopes. sible, lie contended, to retain these two shillings o: duty without retaining the exemptions ((irecr.s). He was inclined to say, that if any tax on salt were to be continued, it ought e . ti.er to be much more than 2s. or to be reduced to so low a rate as to d:spense en tirely with the exemptions ; for it was out of these ex emptions that all the smuggling, perjury, and tirri.:- ralization arose, which rendered this tax so gene:any objectionable—(Cheers). Though lie believed, that f the exemptions were removed, and die duties 100 e:e;, the produce of the tax, from the greater c•iistimi , t , :i given to the article taxed, would be as great as it v,r, at the present, he was not prepared to say that titer: was no objection to the extinction of these exemptinw. The Honourable Member for 13,,dinin would, pethap, tell him that the evil created by these exemptions via, not compensated by the amount produced by tin; small tax—a sum which he believed was som,:where between 200,0001. and 250,000/. The question he had to put to himself was this—is the advantage which the public income derives from this tax, cient to justify me in retaining it against the indisuosi. ,tion of the Howe?—(Cheers) —which certainly was much greater than he had previously expected—( /;ear). His Honourable Friend had told them that he antici pated many objections to his motion. He had told them that he reckoned among his opponents not only the Honourable Members for Shaftesbury, and Bodmin, and Wareham, but also all the Members connected with the western counties. This was a decision that there was no strong feeling in the country in favour of this tax—(Great cheering). He therefore felt, that after the pledge which had been given, not to continue this tax, unless a strong feeling were manifested in its favour. Government would not be justified in continuing it a moment longer than the period fixed by law—fin/mew: Icheering). Thinking that there was no general feeling in favour of the tax, he had not waited for the expres• sion of the opinion of the House; but had come fore ward at the earliest opportunity, to make a suggestion to his Honourable Friend, which he trusted that he would not be indisposed to adopt—namely, to with. draw his present motion—(Great cheering). As his Honourable Friend had coupled his project with are other, to which he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) could by no means accede, he should have been obliged to make the same request to him, even if the Househai been inclined to listen to his proposal about the :at Duties—(Cheers, and a cry desiring Mr. WO clehouse tc withdraw his 'notion). If his Honourable Friend wai not disposed to accede to his suggestion, he must cert. elude by moving the previous question—(Cheering). Cries of " question, question," were then raiszd, mingled with a loud call for " Mr. Wodehouse" all sides of the Howe. In the midst of them, Mr. WODEIIOUSE rose. After expressing his as• tonishment at the observations which had just fallen, from his Right Hon. Friend, he observed that he thoag!lt that it would be unfair in him to withdraw his motion. as in bringing it forward he had made many percun3 l allusions to Hon. Gentlemen, which might, perhaps • have rendered them anxious to obtain an opportunity Cl replying to him ; he, however, was willing to w it!: , draw the motion, if the seconder of it would cans_ to such a measure. Mr. CARTWRIGHT had no objection to have:: withdrawn, as he had seconded it with a view of a -.cc.- taining the feelings of the House upon the question. The SPEAKER then put the question—" Is it your pleasure that this question be withdrawn ?" and took sense of the House on it in the usual way. On his as nouncing that the " Ayes" had it, the House cheered. SALARIES OF PUBLIC OFFICERS. Mr. R. MARTIN rose to move a Resolution, of via: the effect was, " to increase the salaries annexed to th Great Officers of State, and to high judicial situations: the country, so as to render them more adequate to 0 ld 161 Tit stc (A at pc al 11 TJ vw di PI b tt b p 11 1,4 } ti S t,