Star. — London, England, 1827-06-15 00:00:00

ji. • • perience and istacticarkWowlent et\ As House would be greatly increased by the proceedings bf this, amt any disagreeable feelings which might have been aroused by those ptoceetlinki would have subsided—(Heal). Hes entirely concurred that the original Bill of Mr.' Gren ville h.d letn greatly improved by the subsequent al s. Mbe Amendment introduced by his Hon. Friend (Mr. Taylet) was a great benefit to all patties concerned ; and he also - thought that the law as it now stood was still capable of amendment. The House would remember that orsieinally nominees were strictly bound to act as the other Members of the Commit7ee; but he must confess that a custom had grown up of their being regarded as inure-like partieans.sni therefore he thought that some change should be made. With respect to the number chosen by ballot. 49, being a disparagement to the character of the Members of that House, because it was site, wards reduced by strike to IS, he confessed that he could not agree with his Hon. Friend. That part of the law was intended to resemble as much as possible the system of many Special Juries, and, al though some alterations might prove beneficial, he should look upon that suggested by his Hon. Friend as rather too violent. He did not think that any further dispatch in getting through the Electiois i retitions was desirable. The whole of them upon the present Parlia meet bad occupied only three months, which. period did not appear to him at all objectionable—(Hear). As his Hon. Friend did not mean to press his motion, he would only add, that it was Iris intention neat Session to bring forward a measure for the consolidationrof the statutes respecting Elections, and he should be obliged, to his Hon. Friend, or any ether Gentleman. who atilt' favour him with any information or suggestions trot the subject—(Hear). Th. U. A. Taylor. after a few oboerratlons In explandow, drew lab =WOW CORAL LAWS. Mr. WESTERN said, he rose to give, or rather to complete, a notice which be bad given on a former evening, that in consequence of a Bill which had passed that House having been arrested in another place— Mr: A. BARING rose to order. He thought bis Hon. Friend could nor, in strictness, allude to anything which hal been done in another place, unless it had been officially communicated to the House. Mr. WESTERN rose, but The SPEAKEItAAid, that he was of opinion that the nivitice of motion given by the Hon. Gentleman was only contingent. Mr. HUMEISSON believed that to have been the case, and that it was only intended as a general intima• tion of his intention in case that contingency happened. All that he then asked of the Hon. Member was to give a definite notice, and fix a day for the considera tion of the subject. _ _ _ Mr. WESTERN then gave notice, that on Monday next, it was his intention'to move for leave to bring in a Bill to repeal the Act of 1822. so far as it Sull the price at which corn could be imported at 80s.cr rather that part which prevented the Act aiming into opera. tion until the price reached 80s. TH I 07 TRE COUNTRY. Mr. bringing forward the motion with which he should conclode, he felt that he had great and extraordinary difficulties to encounter. In the first place, there was the vast importance of the 'subject itself, and then, in addition to those who, from their official stations or connection with office, were na turally the unflinching friends and supporters of the existing order of things, he supposed he should, from recent circumstances, be also opposed by those who bad hitherto been regarded as the Meads of inquiry. That, however, was the more extraordinary, because scarcely 48 hours had elapsed since the ex-Ministers themselves had in another place opposed a measure of their own concocting. But he should lease those Hon. Gentlemen who used to sit on his side of the House, to reconcile their inconsistency with their former character as well as they. might be able. It was not his fault that he had delayed bringing foe ward his motion for such a length of time. It was.his intention to have applied for the Committee for which he should ask ;hat night, but bad been prevented by the difficulties which were thrown in his way. He would. however, now prove out of their own mouths, the inconsistency of those persons who had brought forward and support ed the measures which produced the present system.— But a short time had elapsed since misery and destitu tion pervaded the kingdom, and for his own part he animpated another dreadful crisis. In the means which were taken toget a larger quantity of Bank of England paper in circulation he beheld the teeds already sown.— It appeared to him to be an absolute impossibility to support national credit under the present system. They wet, actually dying under the operation, while they flattered themselves they were supporting national faith. What was national credit ? In what did it so greatly differ from all other credit ? The effcct of the preterit system of supporting the national credit was, that 11) .debtors were suffering to satisfy the demands of one cre dime ; abd, in addition to that. she debtors were called upon to pay more than they had borrowed. Nor was that all, for the scheme was actively pursued while there was a deficiency in the revenue of 4 millions. But the most ex traordinary contradiction was to be found in the conduct of some of the most honourable and most able men in that Mouse, who would almost shrink out of their skins at the b re mention of levying a tax by surreptitious means, and yet by their votes in support of the present system, they had positively surreptitiously increased the taxes by one•thirti. That be could shew to be the case, and he cored moreover shew, that in consequence of the present system the state of societs was eminently de ranged, and fast verging towards ananehr and contusion. He referred the House to the Petitions which had been laid before it. Those Petitions would prove the misery which had been endured, and the feelings which had been excited. One was for a tax upon foreign wool, ano th. r was for a free trade in corn; one was for a minimum, and another for a maximum of wages; in fact one class and one trade waseontinually petitioning against another. I The time, however, for petitioning, was nearly at Leone. and something must be done for the relief of thelabooring classes, for such was their distress, that a labourer was no longer worthy of his hire. If he obtained the Commit tee for which he should ask, he would pledge himself to prove that the existing fluctuating smalls is highly pre. judicial to the value and stability of properly; v at every payer of taxes is aggrieved, and the receivers of taxes are the only pasties benefitted ; that free trade and the existing taxation cannot by possibility be simulta neously maintained ; that the concealment of the affairs of the Bank of England is prejudicial to the interest of the public ; tharthe intercourse and connection between Government anti the Bank of England is dangerous, inasmuch as t h e interests of the Bank are concerned ; that the country bad been injured by the silver standard having bon to ithaipawo, and the repeal of the law pec., hibiting the exportation of money ; and lastly, that the present system it a fertile source of injury and crime* The Hon. Member then expatiated on the cause and nature of crime. He said he would admit that some of the distress had arisen from the use of machinery, but the chief part of it was :o be attributed to surreptitious taxation. He would then notice the fallacies which had been advanced to account for the &stress.— One of them was the assertion .that it tiad been oc casioned by the high price of corn. At the period of the greatest distress, the price of corn was lower than it had been during the prosperous year 1825. It Was the ruinous fluctuations in the price of corn, and nit its being generally high, which was so injurious to the labouring population. Upon this subject the people had been scandalously misled. 'When men in full strength, and in the flower of their age, were labouring upon the toads lot 2:. 6J. a week, it was not wonderful that laws should be ineffectual for the repression of crime. He held a synopsis in his hand, from which it appeared that there had been no less than 13 financial convulsions during the last 40 years; so that Ministers could not at least plead inexperience as an excuse for their errors in dealing with the late crisis. He would mention only's few of them. In 1797. Mr. Pitt and Lord Grenville were reduced to the alternative of making peace with France, or of suffering the Bank of England to stop payment. They adopted the latter of the two. In consequence of this the country was in ' undated with a depreciated paper, and the rash and imprudent steps which were threatened by the Fi nance Committee of 1810, produced one of the most' terrible of these convulsialas. They adopted the old I standard of value as the basis of their recommenda tions, instead of ascertainiag, as they might easily have .-one, how far the currency was really depreciated, and starting fairly from that point. They took gold as an invariable measure of valise, although for fourteen years previous gold had not been seen in the country. The; IHon. Member here read an extract from a speech of Mr. Horner's, corroborative of his assertion. He also{ quoted from the speeches of Mr. Peel, Mr. Ricardo, and Lord Grenville, to shew the erroneous ideas prevalent at the period of Mr. Peel's Bill ; the increase of value to be imparted to the currency by that measure, having been estimated by these digai viri at only 3 per cent. The effect of the measure was, however, to reduce wheat from 82s. its pi ice at that time, to 435. to which it! tell in the course of three years, realising the appre• hensions expressed in many Petitions to that Heuer._ In 1821, in cmtseguence of the distress to which the, country was reduced,.a Committee of Inquiry was ap pointed. But in that Committee all investigation into the, currency was resisted, on the ground - that it was already settled by Parliament. As the distress continued, in 1822 another Committee was then aoitlted, and, under the; I guidance of a Noble Marquis t he n holding a high place in his Majesty's Government, various measures were adopted, having for their express object to increase the circulating medium. The dead weight project, the borrowing from. the Bank upon Exchequer Bills, the alteration respecting One and Two Pound Notes, and the reduction of interest at the Bank were all mea sures having that .tendency. It was the excess of, paper arising from these measures, that produced the' revulsion and distress of 1825 and 1826. The evil' might have been anticipated. The price of stock and of all other commodities was -forced to an unnatural elevation, till at length the safety-valve itself, the course of exchange, began to give way. But, what mea sures were taken in these -circumstances to compel the Bank to reduce its issues? None; for after all these indication!, the currency was still increased. In 7.1825a0ur months previous to the convulsion, the amount of Bank paper was 21,763,0001. and, of the other currency,lo,ooo,oool.bring more than 2,000,0001. of increase in the aggregate currency during the two years. The Hon. Member they referred to his Ma jesty's speech on the opening of the Session of 1825, and to various speeches of Ministers during the Session, describing the country as highly prosperous, to spew that they had misled the people, and that at a time when they mu.t have known the symptoms of an ap ploghing crisis. Shortly after this, there were no less than 117400 persons in different branches of trade in a state of bankruptcy. For this Ministers ought to be called to account, and not suffered to shelter them selves by blaming the speculation of the people, for, which they had by their measures and language for• nished the means and held out the allurements. The Honourable Member complained of the conduct of Ministers with respect to country bankers. He then read the letter of Jan. 1826, of the First Lord of the Tres.- sury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the &sok of England, and commented upon some of its passages. It began by saying, that G , the convulsion of the Money Market having subsided, and commercial affairs having ' resumed their customary channels." This was dated eighteen months ago, and it informed them that the trade of the country had then got back to, its usual course, when the well known fact was, that it bad not returned to its regular alarm to this day. The small notes, which were to he.withdrawn according to law next year, constituted a great part of the currency of the country, and they would not be replaced by gold. Tire country would consequently be put in a situation of great difficuky. It was upon these grounds he urged the necessity of inquiry. He expected the-support of those Hon. Members who represented districts in which the distress had been the greatest. If Miniiters were determined to return to the currency of their ancestors, it was fair and necessary that they should pay their ser vants as their ancestors had done, and if no Member better qualified than himself undertook the task, he would bring forward a motion to this effect. The Hon. Mem ber then instituted a detailed comparison between the salaries of different public officers at a remote period,, and those enjoyed by such officers at the present day. He recommended a double standard of value. including silver as well as gold—the establishment of a seig forage upon the whole crinage, and tl e continued issue of small notes by country bankers under proper regula tions. The real object of his motion was to procure to the country a secure currency, not subject to fluctua tion. The Hon. Member concluded by moving for a Select Committee to inquire into the causes of the dis tress which affected the commercial and industrious classes during the last and the present year. Mr. LESTER said he seconded the motion, not be ' cause be agreed on all points with his Hon. Friend, but because he thought enquiry r.eceesary for the purpose of ascertaining the true causes or the late manufacturing distress among the great variety of causes to which it had been attributed. He thought it was owing to the faultiness of the law affecting the currency to the great inundation of country bank paper, to the Sinking Fund, and the over issue c f Bank of England paper. Some reser ction should be imp rsed on country banks with respect to the issue of five pound and tea pound notes, the Bank of England restrained in its issues, and the coup !trace given to the Sinking Fund never to rise again. Me would-s4y df Lay hie* on him, earth, for he • Laid may a heavy load on thee." Mr. ICING trusted, that if a Committee were up pdinted, the deplorable condition of the population 4 f Ireland would pot be overlooked. Much of the distress, he thought, of the country generally, was to he attri buted to the measure which had been called a return to cash payments,—a course which amounted to little else than a robbery upon the purse of every man iii Great Britrin. The Hon. Member congratulated the country, however, generally, upon the late change of Administration, which he considered to have been, not the triumph of any party, but the triumph of principle and of public opinion. Mr. FYLEIt thought that the only remedy for the existing distresses would be found in a better regulated system of Corn Laws, and anticipated heavy conse quences from the failure of that Bill in another Route, which the country had been rejoiced to see pass , through the House of Commons with success. Sir FRANCIS BURDETT thought that the root of all the evils under which the country was labouring lay in the mistaken principles upon which Parliament had legislated with respect to the question of the cur rency. Hegave full credit far the best intentions of Mr. Ricarde, and to the many other high authorities with whom the measute of 1819 had originated; but he Thought that, looking to the result of that measure,— and it was folly to say we should not become wise, in however unpleasant a shape conviction might be fora'd upon us,—the most zealous pArt;zans of the principles upon which it bad proceeded could hardly doubt that the subject required re-examination. For himself, he had felt loth to stand opposed, upon any question, to individuals whose judgment add knowledge upon that particular question were held to be quite indu bitable ; but horn the first commencement of the recent arrangements relative to the country, he had believed that those who recommended them were in error. At the time when it was first urged " that the , Batik would never be able to pay again in gold," he remembered having expressed very shortly his belief that the ability of the Bank was not the real question ; but that the question was." would the country be able to'bear tile payment of the notes of the Bank is gold r And he thought that the result had sufficiently shewn that it could not. He repeated, that, in his view, the error committed was not a recent one. He re gretted much, that very shortly after the suspen , sion of cash payments, in 1797, the Bank of England had not been called upon again to pay in gold. The suppression had been politic at the moment; but he thought that in a very short time after it might have, been removed, and the country could then have borne its removal with safety; the fault was in Mr. Pitt's al lowing the piper issue to grow up into a system. and deferring the return to gold payments until the country should be at peace. As it was, we had broken uo, or attempted to break up, all in a moment, a system which had,been maturing itself for half a century; and it was impossible not to see that those who had recommended that course had in reality contemplated nothing of its real effect. It had been supposed that the change might make a difference of three, four, five, or at most six or seven per cent.; and the fact was, that the dif-' Iference went beyond three times that amount ; and it was difficult to deal, with all the aid of philosophy, against the facts that omitted before oar eyes. The whole country flOtaii.hed under what was called the depreciated currency. In defiance, of the was, the, country was rich and prosperous ; but the moment we came to cash payments, then came the " agri cultural distress." And this const Indy recurred. Whenever we made an attempt to carry the principles of the Bullion Act into execution, the country was as suddenly thrown into convulsions, as a man afflicted with the hydrophobia by The mention or approach of water. The fact was, that the people, when they were affected by this process of returning to the metallic cur rency, reminded him (the Hon. Baronet) of fishes in a river from which the water was drawn off, who lay gasping in the mud, without having the least idea of the cause which produced their rain. First they came' fora Corn Bill, which he really believed was a preju. dica instead of an aid to agriculture. He believed that a free importation in corn was the best law that could be made for the farmer and the landowner; and incomparably better calculated to keep up the ptice of produce than any graduated scale whatever. But, at all events, what folly it was to be talking of a gra dated scale for the purpose of regulating prices, when that great measure of all price, the currency of the country, rema ned subject to fluctuation, or unsettled? And this brought him again to our Midas-like appetite for mining everything about us to geld—an ippetite in which he misted we might not eventually indulge to our own destruction. If it was inked " Would be have had the nation remain for ever with a depreciated cur rency ?" he should say " No I" but he would have ad. mated any arrangement rather than a transition so ra pid and sudden. He would have taken measures effec welly to prevent any fat ther depreciation ; but he would not at once have made that decided change, which, with a rash and sweeping hand, had been attempted. Tne Hon. Baronet then proceeded to comment upon the late project of the Bank fir issuing its own notes in sufficient quantity to the country in lieu of the old system of issue—the notes of the country bankers. He confessed that, as far as he was concerned, he thought that project an ingenious and an able one, and saw no reason whatever for its being hastily condemned. This at least would be effected, if such a proposition were adopted—the country would have a paper currency free from that liability to loss to which it was exposed under the old system, from the insolvency of country banters; and a currency, too, which would be tinder the control of Parliament, instead of being regulated only by the fancy or interest of the individuals who issued it. The Hon. Baronet concluded. by , supporting the motion. Mr. MABERLY said, ,that.tbere never cAtld be a sound currency unless Parliament applied, in ;woe de gree at least, the same restrictions to that of the • Bank , of England, which were applied to thocurrency of the other banks. He instanced the period of 1825, when the Bank of England could not have held out, in pay ing, at one particular time for six hours, if they had not put out their old 11. notes. That inquiry, and those measures which had been then applied to the affairs t f provincial banks, ought first of all to have beta applied t.; the affairs of the Bank of England. Mr. PEARCE said, that however great the depre ciation of Bank piptr might be at any particular peii:id of the war, taking the whole period together, he was confident it did not.eacced upon the whole between 51. mad 61.. per cent. A. depteciation to. that amount y in i c o i r re ca i ni s ing o T r h l e e as amountthan was s currency necessar could null have prodoced all the mighty consequent's; a ne tt v r e th r u w te a d s mtooirte.o attest, on the business of the country. He felt thoroughly sa tisfied that there never was an over issue of paper- Mr. HUSKISSON said. it was curious to observe bow discordant weir the views of the Honourable Gentleman ; and the Non. Metuteerby whom he was seconded, ees many of the subjects whin they had loth seoken White the Hon. Mover c. nsured the measure which had been adopted by Parliament in relation to the IL and 21. notes, in no very measured terms, she Meliorable Se., conder had alluded to it as the first step M tech had been taken tow ds a better state deur fence— (.1 e w e+ In many other respects, the two Hon. Geettenren pears,/ to entertain notions wide as the Poles asund-e s but, in the multifariousness of the object. which theg had bush suggested for the inquiries of a Commi t t e , they had been followed by another Hon. Geniemars, whorecommended Irelaud—the whole subjectot loLsod —for investigation. He was for the institution amended inquiry into the state of her population, her tiade this, be it remembered, a proposition made se late in the Session as the 14th of June) and into the state Oohs relations between landlord and tenant in that country. On this last point some information had been that night communicated to the House by an Honourab a Mem ber. which he (Mr. Huskisson) would fain h , pe was soinewhat too • highly coloured. If it was• not so, however, how much more reason was there to fear that 'it was a matter not so easy for the Hou.e at such • a period, to legislate upon, as some Hon. Ge.itlemea supposed; and how strong a ground the fact furidobed for regret that the better feeling of Irish landlords had not already devised and effected some permanent re gaudy for evils, which it must be for them most pro. perly to deal with?—(Cheers). Another Honourable liesaleman bad, in the same way, proposed the quits tioo of 'emigration—a question which had already occupied them during so large a purtion of the Ses sion. Another Member desired to know whether it was the intention of Government to abandon the Canada,. and at once to cut off so vast a pores* of his Majesty's dominions? The question of she Sinking Fund, the Catholic Question, and every °thee question which could at any time come under the cog. nisance of Parliament, had been thus incidentally pro- posed fur the deliberations of the Cons mitt. e—(A laugh). It had happened to himself very often, during his ea. liamentary career, to be treated as a wild ant vieonare theorist—a political speculatoe—on account, more par. titularly, of certain speeches of his about the currency, and other subjects of great public importance. Now, he well recollected the years 1810 and 1811, to slick one of these Hon. Gentlemen had so pointedly tet.ned; for, about that period, he (Mr. H.) happened to be one of a very small minority in that House, who maintoned that the currency of the country was then in a state of extreme depreciation. It was not a little singular, dist they who were now most desirous to press upo.l Polio meat the fact of each depreciation—and tire effects it had produced among us, could not then, by any persuasion a dlernonstation, be made to discover such toil—(Chan and laeghter).—Nothing was more certain than that fur ten previous years the currency bad been at that time declining in value, though rents had nearly doubled within the same time; but when he (Mr. H.) and others asserted that there had been no corresponding effect in she value of money, they were looked upon as mere theorists, and their notions of depreciation u ere rejected accordingly; so that they who now thought a change la our currency absolutely indispensable, were at all crews not among the first to discover the evil, of which, in adverting to it, they at present so much cornplaioed. One Honourable Gentleman had said, that if no mess sure should be adopted forthwith by Parliament for a revision of the currency, the salaries of all public caters should be reduced to the scale at which they stood it 1792, bofore the late war. Into the expedieucy of this measure, be (Mr. H.) for one, was quite willing to go; but in case the result of the inquiry should be to adopt the Hon. Gentleman's proposal, he hoped that Hon. Gentleman would not object to other incomes being dealt with in the same manner— (Hear.) If the incomes of public servants were to be taxed, according to that which seemed a favourite scheme of retrenchment with some Members; at least. let ether Mcomes, del ived from other sources. be proportionably taxed—(Hear). The Hon. Gent. in supporting his suggeeion, had referred to a number of offices in the Ordnance Department, and contrasted minutely, their present salaries with thesala ries attached to them in 1792. But he (Mr. H.) believed there was not one of the Gentlemen, by whom they were severally held, who would not rejoice to change his post, with its duties and salary, as these were at protest settled, with the same post and duties as they were known to have been in 1792; for, in 1792, theie sala ries, though nominally myth smaller; were yet (coupled with emoluments, since abolished, but then attaching to them) much larger in reality than they now were. (Hear.) As for the motion that had so recently bees Put from the Chair—however numerous were the es traneous topics into which its discussion had led some Members—it was, in sooth, nothing more than an at temptlo renew one which had been brought forward by•the Hon. Member for Essex (Mt. Western), in the year 1821. On that occasion he (Mr. H.) had troubled the House so largely about the objects of the motion of the Member for Essex, and had succeeded so en tirely in persuading them to reject the proposals it involved. that he should not now dream or going into the subject again, except for the purpose of that whatever was done in 1819, to secure to this country a standard of vim, and to fix that standard= a permanent basis, this was at least evident—a It would have been wrong, in 1822, for Parliament to depart from the system they had taken such pains to e i tablob. in 1819, much mote 'scold it be wrong in them, in 1827, again to disturb the state of the currency so esta blished. But Parliament rejected the pi opossl of the Member for Estee (Mr. Western), and positively refused • to alter the standard, which, for three centuries before, had been the standard of value in England. And here he (Mr. Huskisson), would declare, that there was no pert of his public conduct to which he looked back wo 3 more unmixed pleasure, than the course he had adopted in exerting himself to persuade the HAL e at that time to come - to such a resolution. Five years had elapsed since 1822, and if Parliament were now to depart front the declaration they then recorded, they would be guilty of something that he should feel inclined, almost, to term insanity. • Looking at the motion now berme the Huse, however worded, as intended to raise a quo don. and introduce a doubt, whether we ought not !" depart from the standeid, which had eo been kel Ird to 1819; he for one should give it his most decided oN°' sition—(Hear, hear). He could imagine no rue.isurc so da getous as the alteration of the standard of our nioreo ' uo one so . saleulotcd. to spread confusion and alai !! s , ha_•••, ,1011.1 iet 1 '~ w got eft& lid iog Cie el•' that• the star Thi prai