Star. — London, England, 1821-02-02 00:00:00

to nteci Friend. After stating the Piper to c oin 2 Breach o f Privilege- it might be added— , pa i t having been stared to the House, on the „ r t of the Secretary of Stare for the Home Depart 4 that the Paper was considered by him to be re wbeible, and that it got into the Gazette by mis ic does not appear that the House proceeded fur tmerCePt to place this disavowal on their Journals." Lord CASTLEREAGH suggested that the debate tad be adjourned till to-morrow, in order to give p,ight Honourable Baronet an opportunity to $1 , 4 4 a proper form of words ; which, after a few i b or rscions from Mr. GORDInt, was agreed to. Pt NA NCE. 'd MABERLY wished to call the attention of gclule to what he considered a subject of the ut jot i mport ance. It was for some papers relative to * sante affairs of the country. He rose to move r e to account of the deficiency of the Consolidated ie d, on the sth January, 1621, and of the manner U which this deficiency had been made up. He ,mod to call their attention to the Sinking Fund. are have nominally a Sinking Fund of seventeen r ati o ns, while, in reality, we have only two millions, a d that to meet a debt of between eight and nine !o a r ed millions. We have had now six years of rac e; and all that we have is a Sinking Fund of tgo m illions to meet this enormous debt. Could any son ve rse that a Sinking Fund of two millions toold ever enable the country to get into that con &ion in which it could struggle with difficulties? On a future Occasion he should beg leave to call the attc:..i mof the Howe to this Sinking Fund. It was a rnere :,kilacy, and he should endeavour to strip it of all its ceisions, and to expose it in its real and true P . ht. ' FT, in reality, what is a Sinking Fund? It is t . e a%iount of our revenue over our expenditure. lie nee anxious for a Sinking Fund, but he should like to see it stripped of all its fallacies. He did not anticipate from the King's Speech any great reduc t'on in the ex 'enditure. There were, indeed, some i 3 inaations thrown out about a reduction in our Mi litary Establishment. If the Right Hon. Gentleman opposite (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) persevered la this system, and did not economise, it was quite impossible that any relief could be extended to the People; and, in his opinion, the Agriculturalists would soon be applying for relief; and what relief cold the Parliament extend, but a reduction in the tmtion? If they were to look to the price of grain car, and what it was thirty years ago, they would 52dit pretty nearly equal. And now theirlurdens =tenfold, they hare additional rent to pay, besides direct and indirect taxation. It was impossible they /cold continue to exist wader these accumulated rents. No relief could, then, be extended to them, except a redection in the taxes. The expense of collecting the resew was most exorbitant. Here it was eight per cent—in Ireland it amounted to nothing less than 21 patent. Now, was it not a most enormous sum that eight pounds out of every £lOO should go into the picket of the collector ? In fact, it was quite impos lie that things could go on in their present condi tion. The People will not longer be able to endure their burdens, and they are not to expect any relief hom the reduction of taxes. The Country will be amble to meet any emergencies, either from war or say other cause. It was with these feelings that he made his present motion, and he thought it right to do so before any supplies were granted ; and although a was perfectly easy to get those Acts printed, yet it seldom happened that they could get them until nearly the end (lithe Session. The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER was happy to state that the expenses of the present year mid be defrayed without a loan of any kind, ad that period was now arrived which the People sidled for so ardently, when there was no necessity ts resort to any loan, or to an increase of taxes. In consequence of the depression of trade, a consider able decrease took place in the revenue; and it must he con olatory to the House to learn the real state of the trade of the country at present. The amount of eported British manufactures, in the half year end * the sth of January, 1821, in the ports of Lon ion, Liverpool, and Hull, exceeded the preceding War by three millions and a half. And he was bppy to inform the House that he "saw every reason r anticipate a still greater increase. &JOHN NEWPORT could not help calling the attention of the House to the enormous expense of collecting the revenue in Ireland. There, where rade is depressed to the lowest degree, the People ate bowed down with an overwhelming weight of taxation, and those burdens are still furtheeincreasedl hy the enormous expense of collecting the revenue. There was one subject connected with these matters which he had to complain, that when an applica tion is made for any papers relative to the subject, the Session is allowed to pass over before the House put in possession of them. He perfectly concurred pith the Honourable Gentleman (Mr. Maberly) that the Sinking Fund should be stripped of all its fal lacies. Nothing could be more absurd or unjust than to hold out delusions to the People of this sort, mating that there is a real Sinking Fund, whereas it is rarely nominal. He hoped that Honourable Mem her would persevere in his intention of instituting an issestipticn. It was hut justice to the People to Wideceive them on that point. With respect to the increase of exports, of which the flight Honourable Gentleman spoke, he had been taught to look with great suspicion at these exports. He knew that these sports frequently took place to the ruin of the ex- Potter, and that no return was made to the country. Mr. PASCOE GRENFELL observed, that the %Ain Fund was merely delusive. He would sup lwathat-there really was a nominal Sinking Fund of wenteen millions, and he would even suppose that the real Sinking Fund amounted to five millions, in stead of two; still he was at a loss to know why the teelre millions remaining should not be struck ( 414 the Sin king Fund be considered what it really lad truly was, five millions. They all knew very that the Right lion. Gentleman borrowed the Joe at about th ree per cent .—b ut w h en t h e h a lf- Lear s interest b ecame d ue , h e f oun d i t i mposs ibl e to I the dividends without borrowing the money a se road.o for time. lie would ask if it wa s a p r oper situa the Guveraimeat of a country to be in, not to h e able to pay the claim of the public creditor with wt :wing to the 11.ii,k to borrow ? The Right Hon. c.c. an lust y ear state d, t h at i n a s h ort time t h e leit :tenty of the Consolidated Fund would correct it . He would now ask him, if the result had an mered his clicctatious--whether the hope had been •. immiOo realized which he held out et that time—whether the deficiency had not been greater in the last quarter than in the corresponding quarter of the preceding year—whether, in fact, the deficiency had not in creased from £8,500.000 to £8,800,000? The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said, in reply to the observation of the Right Hon. Baro. net. respecting the expense of the collection of the Revenue, he had great satisfaction in being able to state that a saving to a large amount had been ef fected by the regulations which had been lately esta blished. He had not any intention at present ot turning into funded debt any part of the present un funded debt, the latter not being greater than the public credit could conveniently support. When ever the actual Sinking Fund reached a given amount, he thought it might then be advisable to reduce the nominal Sinking Fund, and he looked forward with confidence to the approach of the period when that reduction might be practicable. With regard to the arrangement for meeting the payment of the divi dends, to which the Honourable Member had alluded, he did not think that a wiser arrangement could be adopted, and he could prove that a very large sum of money had been saved by it to the public. Mr. MABERLY said, the Right Honourable Gen tleman had stated that there was an increase in the Revenue ; but the produce of the new Taxes had been estimated at £3,800,000, while the amount which they had really produced was only £2.500,000; so that, in fact, here was a deficiency of £1,000,000. With respect to the Sinking Fund, he could tell the Right Honourable Gentleman, that next year it would most likely be less than it had been in the last; and he would tell hirn the reason. He had charged the expenses and interest of his loans on the Consoli dated Fund until that fund could bear it no longer; and then he charged the expenses and interest of the last year's loan upon the Sinking Fund. Dut that. charge would not affect the Sinking Fund until nett year ; so that, in all probability, the real amount of that fund would be decreased next year instead of augmented. He really was at a loss to account for the expectation held out by the Right Honourable Gentleman of a continued increase in the Revenue; he could not imagine how It could be fairly and honestly calculated upon. He should be happy if it remained A it now is; and he thought it was ex tremely well, when the distressed condition of agri culture and the depression of commerce were consi dered. With respect to the £6,000,000 borrowed of the Bank, he would grant that the Public had been benefited by it; but was it not a disgraceful thing that a fund regarded as sacred to a particular pur pose should have been diverted to another object? In the year 1817, the deficiency of the Consolidated Fund was £2,500,000; in the next year there was an increase; in the year following, there was a still greater decrease than the former ; and at last we had a Sinking Fund of two millions to pay off a debt of nearly £900,000,000. Mr. BARING said, with respect to the present state of the Sinking Fund, he fully concurred in what had been stated by the Honourable Gentleman who had just sat down. To enter into these com plicated accounts with this farce of a double Sinking Fund, so as to make them intelligible to the House, was quite impossible. He did not know any object which the Right Honourable Gentleman could have in view in retaining it but to render the accounts un intelligible. The Right Honourable Gentleman said he looked forward to the time when the nominal Sinking Fund might be given up. He could not conceive what objection he could have to give it up at once, and by coming to the real Sinking Fund, let the House understand the real state of the public accounts. It required a person of considerable un derstanding and experience in accounts to compre hend them, and many persons who were very con versant with the nature of accounts in general, found themselves totally incapable of understanding them. With respect to the Right Honourable Gentleman's expectations of improvement in the Revenue, he could not understand how it was possible that the existing Agricultural and Commercial distresses should continue, without their effects being felt in the Revenue of the Country. He would recommend the Right Honourable Gentleman to apply his atten tion to the simplification of the accounts, as it was absolutely necessary for rendering them intelligible. The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said, that the increase of the revenue in the last half-year was greater than he remembered to have ever known it before, and from the Reports of the Revenue Boards, he had every reason to hope that it would continue to increase. With respect to what had been said by the Hon. Gentleman as to the propriety of a simplification of the accounts, he fully concurred with the Hon. Gentleman in the propriety of such a measure, if it were practicable, but he really thought that the course recommended by the Hon. Member would only render the whole course of the accounts more perplexed and unintelligible; he could not but think it more wise to continue the present form. Mr. PHILLIPS said, he really did believe that neither the Right Hon. Gentleman nor any other Gentleman in the House understood the annual ac counts. He knew of no reason why the national ac counts should not be as clearly and intelligibly stated as those of any private merchant. An account of millions was as easily kept, and as susceptible of clear arrangement, as of thousands. What the Right Hon. Gentleman had said that evening convinced him, if possible, more than anything which he had heard before, that the accounts of the country were in such a complicated state that no man could understand them, The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER ex plained, that they were made up agreeably to cer tain forms which had been long in use, and if any other forms were adopted, any comparative state ment referring to former accounts would become wholly unintelligible. Mr. GRENFELL said, that the Right Honourable Gentleman's paternal anxiety for the double account of the real and the nominal Sinking Fund was per fectly natural, the invention being entirely his own. The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said, it had been recommended originally by Mr. Fox, and the suggestion had afterwards been approved of by Mr. Pitt.—The motion was then put and carried. Mr. MABERLY then moved for an Account of the sums of money applicable to the redemption of the Public Debt of the United Kingdom, distinguish. ing that of England from that of Ireland, for the year ending the Bth January, 1821; also, for an Account of the total amount of the unredeemed Debt of the United Kingdom, with the charges of managing the same, separating that of Ireland from that of England. The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER begged to state, that the Honourable Gentleman was incorrect in the statement he had given in an earlier part of the evening of the amount of the Debt. Mr. MA BERLY said, he had stated it at about E 900,000,000. The funded debt amounted to £800,000,000, and the unfunded to L"70,000,000: which, if funded at the present price, would be nearly £100,000,000, and both together would then be little short of what he had stated. The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER said, the funded debt was certainly nearly £800,000,000, but the amount of the unfunded debt was only £30,000,000 instead of £70,000,000, as stated by the Hon. Member, and if funded at the present time, would add £10,000,000 to the amount of the funded debt.—The motions were then agreed to, as were also several others for Papers of a similar nature. Mr. MAURICE FITZGERALD moved for a Copy of the Order of the Board of Excise of the 24d of July last, on the subject of Irish Spirits. PROVISION FOR TILE QUEEN. Lord CASTLEREAGH moved the Order of the Day for considering the Report of the Committee of Supply, recommending a provision to be made for the Queen.—The Report being brought up and read, Mr. HOLME SUMNER rose, and said, that when the House was in the Committee be had moved to reduce the sum proposed to £30,000, and he now' rose for the purpose of renewing that motion. In the course of the observations which he had made on that occasion, he had certainly been )ed by the im petuosity of the debate into expressions which he had much rather that he had not used—(Hear). The Honourable and Learned Gentleman opposite had charged him with entertaining opinions directly at variance with the principles of British justice. The Hon. Member seemed to think that because he (Mr. H. Sumner) had not been present during the whole of the inquiry, he was not qualified to judge of the evidence, or to pronounce as to the innocence or guilt of the Queen. But he thought that any man who was present on the day when Lieutenant How nam gave his evidence, and had read the whole of the proceedings as they were published, could form a correct opinion. He was, however, willing to set entirely out of the case the whole of the evidence which had been produced in support of the charges l against her, and to rest his judgment solely on the testimony of Lieutenant Hownam ; and he felt com pletely justified by that testimony in the opinion which he had pronounced of her guilt. He did not think it safe to entrust her with so large a sum of money at her own disposal, as that which the Reso lution of the Committee proposed, and he therefore now moved that the words 4g thirty thousand" be substituted for the words gg fifty thousand" in the Resolution—( Hear, hear). Mr. BROUGHAM said, the House would imme diately perceive that he did oot rise to offer any op position to the motion of the Honourable Member. Whether the sum stated were 50, or 30, or 20, or 010,000, was to him and to the colleagues with whom he had the honour to be associated in her Majesty's legal counsels, a matter of absolute indifference.— Her Majesty had positively declined to receive any sum whatever, and it was therefore to her and to them perfectly indifferent why was the amount voted—(Hear, hear)!—With respect to those ex pressions in last night's debate, to which the Hon. Member had alluded, after the candour which the Honourable Gentleman had shewn in his acknow ledgment of their impropriety, he should be the last man in that House to revive the remembrance of them; but he must put it to the sense of the Hon. Member and of the House, whether it could possibly be endured that, night after night, as had been done, not only by the Honourable Member for Sorry, but also by others, they should rake out parts of the evidence which had been given before another Court, and that upon such parts and scraps of evidence so de tached they should found repeated assertions of her Majesty's guilt. This had been done night after night ; but he would now say, that it was a practice which could no longer be Suffered —(Loud cheers). — Her Majesty either was, or was not acquitted. If she was acquitted, she ought to be treated accord ingly, and nu man had a right to say that she was guilty ; if she were not acquitted, then why did not the prosecution go on ?—(Loud cheers).—lf they were not satisfied with what had been done, why were not the proceedings regularly pursued in that House, and evidence laid before it to prove her guilt ?—(Hear). Let them again bring forward the charges, let them again go into the proof, and her Majesty would be prepared to meet them—(Loud cheering)—but let not such foul, such unsupported assertions any longer be dealt in—(Loud cheering). Sir T. B. LETHBRIDGE was prepared to support the smaller sum, because he did not like to see a large sum in such hands. He had been told that the courier, Bergami, had been living in the metropolis of France, in a style equal to that of a British Noble-1 man; and he wished to know whence his revenues' came from? He would declare, that from the evidence the Queen was guilty of the charges against her. Mr. CURWEN complained of the numerous charges, without proof, which were every night con tinued, in order to keep in agitation the public mind. He thought they ought to make a provision for her Majesty adequate to the dignity of the Crown, espe cially as the prosecutor had abandoned the prosecution. He admitted, however, that her Majesty had made use of expressions such as she would not have used in other circumstances. Still he could not agree to mix economy with a gross and palpable denial of justice. Mr. WESTERN said, if it were to be permitted to any man to rise in that House, and to say that the Queen was guilty, that House would be a place where the grossest injustice was tolerated. He did regret that such expressions should be used, because the People would perceive in that House a departure from all those principles on which British justice was founded—(Hear, hear). Mr. MAURICE FITZGERALD trusted that the spirit of economy which had on this occasion been displayed by the Honourable Gentlemen opposite, the Members for the Counties of Surrey and Somer set, would continue to animate them on every future occasion. He could not, however, avoid expressing• his opinion that the warmth they had displayed had been wholly misapplied. It was not to that side of the House that they should have addressed their ob servations, but to his Majesty's Ministers, to the Treaspiy Bench—(Near, AWhey (the Opposition) • • • supported the Resolution on the supposition of hei having been acquitted: they thought het innocent his Majesty's Ministers thought ritheiWise, bdt pro posed the grant notwithstandin t , ; th os e Ministers., therefore, ought to get up to defend limit own con:. duct in this case. If Honourable Methhers would get up and make use of such expressions as had fallen from the Honourable Gentlemen opposite, he trusted Ministers would rise in their own defence. Mr. HOLME SUMNER., in explanatjo►i, said, that he had not moved his Amendment oa the ground of his opinion of her Majesty's guilt, for he had expressly stated it to he his opinion that no vindictive proce*J ings should be adopted in consequece.! of what had occurred in the other House. B:►t, thinking that several of the Queen's Answers to Addresses presented to her, and the Message which she had yesterday sent to the House, shewed her wish to produce an improper influence on the public mind, he did not think it safe to intrust so large a sum of the public money to her disposal. Mr. SYKES said, that whenever a vacancy oc curred in the office of Moderator, he would recom- mend the Hon. Member to become a candidate. He differed entirely from the lion. Member in his view of the question, and he also differed from him in the construction he had put upon her Majesty's Answers to the Addresses. That House was not sitting to consider of a scale of reward or punishment, adapted to a case of supposed guilt or innccence, but to con sider what was a proper and fitting allowance for a person in her high and exalted station. With respect to that on which the opinions of the whole people had been so strongly expressed, the insertion of her name in the Liturgy, in his opinion her Majesty had a right to demand it, and he thought that, sooner or later, it must be acceded to. The able legal view which the Hon. and Learned Member for Oxford had taken of the question, had carried conviction to his mind of the right, and the strong expression of the public opinion impressed him with the conviction of the necessity of its being ultimately yielded. He heard it said on one side of the House that her Ma- jesty was convicted, and on the other, that she was acquitted. In his opinion she ought to be placed in - the same condition as if she had never been accused. Mr. Alderman WOOD said, he should content himself with replying to the Honourable Member for Surrey, with one question. He had told the Ho- nourable Member the night before, that if he would bring down any unpaid bills of her Majesty's to the House, he (Mr. Alderman Wood, would undertake that they should be paid. He wished now to know whether the Honourable Member had in his pocket any demands upon her Majesty ?—(Loud dieers). He would pause for a reply—[The worthy Alderman sat down, and some Honourable Member rose to ad dress the House, when Mr. Alderman Wood again got up and said]—The Honourable Member for Sur rey not having any answer to make to his inquiry, he had quite done with him—(Loud cheering). But he had something to offer in answer to the observa tions of another Honourable Member. The House now heard, from the Member for the county of So merset, that he had heard of large sums of money expended by Bergami. He hoped that he would be prepared to-morrow to shew what sums had been sent him. He challenged him to prove that one shilling had gone from hence—(llear). That in dividual was at Paris at the express desire of the Learned Gentlemen (in whose presence he now spoke it), her Majesty's Legal Advisers, in order to have been called to this country if the Honourable Mem ber and those who thought with him had dared to have brought the Bill into that House. Had that been the case, the Honourable Member would, perhaps, have been gratified with a sight of the Gen tlernan—(Hear, hear). He had now done with both the Hon. Gentlemen ; and would turn to the Noble Lord, to ask him a question similar to those he had just put. He had seen the Noble Lord reading last night from a book similar to one which he held in his hand. The Noble Lord had read it as the Queen's answer to the City of Canterbury Address, and the passage peculiarly marked was the following I trust the period will arrive when I shall be able to promote the happiness of my subjects." A second answer had, " I shall be glad to make my people happy." The question he would ask the Noble Lord was—Had lie ever seen those passages in writing in any paper coming from the Queen as her Majesty's answer? They were, he believed, stated to be the answers of her Majesty to the Deputations of Dover and Canterbury ; but, in fact, those answers were very short, and were given verbally according to his recollection (and he was present at the time), the words spoken were something like, and were these— " It would be a great pleasure to me to make all the people happy"—(Hear, hear). Her Majesty was in conversation with the Deputations some time, and more might have been said ; but there was no written Address in which such phrases occur, and he chal lenged the Noble Lord to point out any such. _Lord LOWTHER merely rose to state, in corro.• bOration of what was asserted by the Honourable Member for Somersetshire, as to the style and man ner of living of Bergami, that he was pointed out to him, and his equipage, servants, and all about his mode of living were of the most magnificent style. In what way he got the funds he could not say, but the fact of his living in that style he could affirm. Mr. BROUGHAM said, that in consequence of the Honourable Alderman's reference to him, he could state, that it was entirely by his direction, in conjunction with his Learned Colleagues, that the individual alluded to was brought from Italy to Paris. He had been residing on his farm in Italy, and he was brought to Parts, that in case the Bill should have come into that House, he might have been sent for had they thought fit to call him. That he as serted of his own knowledge. With respect to t h e scale of expenditure of that individual he knew no.. thing, but he did know that if he should have speat a great sum of money while in attendance on the: call of the legal advisers of her Majesty, he was not the only witness who had made a'similar expenditure. Lord CASTLEREAGH said, that he was sur-. prised the Honourable Aldermao fAmuld have called upon him, who was neither in the service nor confi dence of her Majesty, to produce the written An swers of her Majesty; so that thd Honourable Alder man might very safely give the gallant challenge he bad done. He thought there were other things more serious than the rhodomontades which had been read; and he thought the Honourable Alderman would 1 $, '