The National Register. — London, England, 1811-07-21 00:00:00

THE NATIONAL I the Law, but he was assured it would soon be banished from commerce. "I hough he did not mean to propose any measttre himself, yet he expressed a wish that no more notes should be issued by the Bank until the Bill was either rejected or passed. Mr. HERBERT contended against the extraordinary manner in which tt.e Bill !has introduced, and the manner in which it was pushed on by his Majesty's Ministers : the measure itself was like.a phenomena in politics, and he had heard it called a measure waich the Ministers deemed necessary to the salvation of the Governnhnt. He was sorry there should be occasion to constitute a compulsory law, which might overthrow the Con sti-ution. Besides, it had been intimated to them by Ministers, that were the proposed measure rejected, they would find need to constitute p :per-money a legal tender of the realm. The Right Hon. Gentleman (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) then before him, hal argued on a former day, that the two prices were net in existence until they were created by my Lord King. Nothing more fair and patriotic had ever been proposed. Its object was to bring the e H into the public mace, creating thereby a necessity for enacting of some measure of public uti lity. it was a doctrine quite inadmissible that a twenty shil ling Bank-note and a shilling were equal in value to a guinea; every person knew the cost of a guinea, and the consideration of that told them paper was depreciated. Such were the mea sures adopted by the French in their paper system, and we were only proceeding a little more slowly in the same career. How, might he ask of hls Majesty's Ministers, did they intend to hin der guineas from being sold to private banks ? they Would find it difficult to prevent such clandestine commerce, and he be lieved that the Bill would do no more than hindtr, not amend the eviis which had been complained of. Mr. CALCRAFT contended against the comparison which the Hon. Gentleman (Mr. liettert) h.,d nude bctwh n the Bank assigNals of France and the notes of fugland ; :0,000,000 of the former were issued, where there existed little national cre dit. The currency issued by toe Bank of Britain amounted only to 23,000,0001. proceeding from a Government secure in the public faith. How could the Hon. Gentleman ittelul.;e in such wild comparison ? It only showed how blind men might make themselves by argument. Mr. BROUGHAM believed that his Hon. Friend (Mr. Calcraft) had considerably departed from his object, by treating the pre sent measure as a fresh political subject. The Bill appeared to him, in its present shape, to be utterly incapable of assisting the country, and was only fit for creating mischief; it would assist debtors to cheat their creditors, but would be of no ser vice to the people. By express enactment of the Bill, guineas were allowed to be transported into Ireland. The real value of gold might there he received, and transmitted back to the re ceivers in Britain ; and even were these clauses omitted, the evils would not be remedied: Her did not approve of the man ner In which Lord King's intimation had been treated. No re lief was offered by the Bill on that nor on any other description of creditors. Suppose that a judgment was passed in last ter m yet unacted on, the creditors might seize the persons of their debtors, until they were paid ip goki, in paper, or in goods. He hoped better things from the known ci:aracter ef the Judges. Ile hoped they never would be found willing to stoop to the base association of which they were exempted to become mem bers. No, the framers of this preposterous Bill would never trust for support to a Court bf Law or a Court of Equity. The former would not meet their views, and the latter dare not. To what then must they have recourse ? Why, to a farther le gislative provision, by which Batik-notes shall become a legal tender. He must confess that he felt a curiosity to observe what sensation would be created by doing away the Bank Re striction, in that respectable corporation ; they now talked big upon the subject, expressed much uneasiress at the risk to which their credit was exposed, by frequent dlscesslers on a subject in which they were in no degree interested.—dischargii g their obligations in paper, as they did solely for the belle& of the community, without the smallest add.tional emolument acereieg to themselves, or wish that it should. Honourable souls ! they wished to resume cash payments. Cruel, cruel Minister, who could leave so sincere and fervent a desire un gratified. He would recommend, so long as it did remain un gratified, what next to its attainment, he was sure must please them, and that was that the surplus, or at least what the people, no doubt, unreasonably, imagined to be the surplus of their fair profits, should be held in trust till the removal of the Restric tion, when a dividend might be made, upon its being ascer tained that they had not been levied upon the Public by virtue of that suspected engine. He yet hoped the awful examples before their eyes, would deter the Right Hon. Gentleman and his colleagues from the adoption of so destructive a system ; but if they were determined to rank among the most foolish and headstrong of mankind, he could only say, that he au gured HI for the fate of the country, and the tenor of the new ISTER. reign, which was marked in its comraeneement by so unhappy a policy. Mr. MILNE was of opinion that the Hon. Gentleman had int i oduced notch irrelevant matter into his speech. The Hon. .Gcntlemau (Mr. Milne) then went on to show the extreme unfairness of Lord King ' s notice and conduct: and this posi tion he illustrated by asking how that Noble Lord had b een paying for salt, coals, candles, &c. Had he not been paying for these things in the said klepreciated currency? With this depreciated currency had he net paid for tht se things, and he had not proved to any one that the hank paper which he prof fered bad been refused in any one instance to his detriment; but though he paid in this depreciated currency, yet he now stepped forward and toll his tenants that he could receive their rents in gold only, he knowing that it would be impossible to comply with his apse di.rit, except at an immense, at an almost ruinous loss. But a law ought to be made to compel those who required payment in gold, also to pay in gold. Fhe evil of such a proceeding would then correct itself. The Bill, as far as it went, he approved; but in his opinion it did not go far enough. Sir THOMAS TURTON, differing from most other speakers, thought the Noble Lord (King) should have been left alone, and that the Legislature should not have interfered with his finan cial reveries; lie would then soon have desisted; or he would have lost his tenants; and the Noble Lord could no more do without tenants than they could without lindlords, and he would soon have been brought to a sense of his own impru dence. Lord FOLIZT.F.TONE entered into a spirited defence of the motive 3 which had guided Lori Icing jn the course he had put-. sued. Ile contended that he had only acted in conformity with the laws of his country, and observed that the tenant could not complain of oppression, ielemuch as he had the opportunity of raising the price of his cemmodity comnunsurate with the addi tion made to his re et. llc cteu,hiered the Dank is a state of insolvency, from the ver7 temmerit it ctea,ei its caeh payments, and considered the assertion of the search', of grAd in they country wholly unfoundtal, itlestrating his argument by instant:4 ing the traffic which had been carrying forward, aed the facility with which gold could yet be procured for an adequate pre mium. in France, when the assigrt4t disappeared, gold returned; and, he had no doubt, when the Bank of Fnglaud notes were withdrawn the same effect would be experienced. Before he concluded, his Lordship took leave to relate an anecdote of the Noble Lord (Stanhope), the original ptomoter of this notable 13:;L—Some years ago when the precious Metals were in general circulation, a practige preveiaal of clipping and sweating e,uiticas, by which their intrinsic value was much redueed The Noble Lord, who had tiways a remarkable talent fur mechanics and chymical experiments, thoaght he had discovered a sovereign remedy for this nefarious practice, a,41 with this nostrum the Noble Lord waited on Mr. Pitt, and having explained the nature and effect of this wonderful discovery, he persuaded Mr. Pitt to let him try the experiment, and got admission to the mint for that purpose; here lie employed a person belonging to the mint to make this guinea, which was not to be easily melted, and could not be clieptd et sweated. The work was perft rmed perfectly to the Noble Lord's secisfaction—" 0l" says his i ,ord ship, " this will do—thi.4 do—this is the very thing;" but, unfortunately, the men let the guinea slip from his linger upon a stone staircase, and it fell in pieces. The Noble Lord's Bill was much like his guinea; it might be adopted to some pur poses, but could never aiaaver the purpose for which it was intended. Upon the whole, 1 - e consideredlins Bill as an ex post facto law, productive of mte.h evil, totally insulticient to its , ob ject and more detrimental than beneficial towards remedying the evil it proposed to redress. Lord CasTeemenon wax impressed with the necessity of the Bill, and therefore gave it his warm support. Mr. MARRYATT said, that this Bill was not only the most extraordinary in itself, but attended with the most extraordi neey circumstances; his Majesty's Minister:, by supporting this 'WI, had recanted all their former doctrines, and thereby admitted the tleprccution of Bank-paper. He considered. this measure as wholly inadequate to the purpose, and con ceived that nothing but retracting their etepe, by restraining the Bank issues, and restoring cash payments, could remedy the evil. Mr. JOHN SMITH supported the Bill on the grounds of expe diency. The CHANCriLOR of the EXCHEQUER, in a mist able and animated speech, combated the ai gtiments against /he measure s and urged its expedirecy in impressive terms. Mr. FIERNEY would not have acted as Lord King bad done, had he heen in his place, yet he citing not but reprobate the manner in which that Nobleman was attempted to be hunted down. The Right Honourable Gentleman, who was mu. perated at his refusal to connect lanist-11 with his Administra tion, would low nu opportuuity to hunt him down.--(Grief ' kid' . a _ .. ha ~~