The Sun. — London, England, 1804-07-12 00:00:00

roorzel he entertained a great . (?agree of re. ! weep, oral hid he arty influence io aupoietieg. Mini. fOr Itel;nde that Right Hon. (etotenter) tti odd he among the first • wh mite should recom oleod to fill the importent coffee, the duties ef whisk .he for. some time beck appeared to have uedertaken to discharge.' But notwithstanding that appearencee, there still reinaieed double who in reelity was oo charged it ith the exerotion of to office of Cheneeller of the Eechequer f or i re l a te'. I n eehe r he had to state upon dile.' subjea, ,he should en dir4 yr or' to proceed tolely on Parliamentary ground, tt ithoueliateoing to any thieg that Party intrigue er political partiality might suggest. He should first , observe, as the House must often have bad act. ca , ion to observe, that the Right Honourable Gentleman (Mr. Fooree) had frequently aaed as Chancellor of the Exchequer for Ireland. He had moved for several Official Documents to be produced by the proper Officers 'he had made many official statements to the House nn the financial af. fairs of Ireland ; he had also favoured the House tvith observations, which tended to throw some light on the nature and amount of the balances which are supposed to remain in the hands of Commissioners of the Treasury of Irelewl. He should now take the liberty to ask by what official authority did that Rt. Hon. Gentleman make those statements, and call for those documents ? Was the Rt. Hon. Gentleman sure that - these documents' came •from the proper Office and the proper Officer ?. That was a point which ,it was the duty of the House to ascertain ; and here he begged leave to remind the House of a fad. It referred eu an account presented from the Admiralty some years ago, purporting to he an account of the numher of ships reoployed. In the first account presented a material error was deteattl, and it was consequently withdrawn, and another substituted in its room, With the error correaed, atol the more accurate account signed by the proper officer. Why. does the House continue to observe this form re. speaing written documents, unless to make the pro. per officer responsible for any mistake that may tend .to mislead the House, and to ascertain to whom any mistake which may occur should properly be imputed? Jr would now appear that the Office of Chancellor of the Exchequer for Ireland was held by one who' ceased to execute the funaions of that office, while these funaions were discharged by another who did not acknowledge that he held the office ; fur if he held or had accepted the, office, he no doubt would have vacated his sear,conformably to the existing law on,that point. He should here content himself with oloervhig, 'that if' the House thought it their duty to be so stria with regard to the certification of written documents, he was convinced by a parity of reasoning and by analogy, that they should be equally . strict with regard to every oral statement made in arty department of public office; 'and that they should take care that such statements should come before them on the part of persons whom they knew to be in office, arid whom they would look upon as answerable for the truth and accuracy of what they orally sealed, as well as for the accuracy of the written documents which they effieially lairs before the House. And, indeed, what would be the 'situation of the House 'if they were to be thus misled on material points? . These would be no re. spoosible person to step forward to assert the'accu. racy of the documents *laid before file Pious . f. the statements or documents were brought forward by 'the Right Hon. Gentlemen (Mr. I+ orrea), "he' might says, he was not in office, and therefore was not stria!) , responsible for them. If the House rooked to another; Right Hal. Gentleman (Mr. CORRY), who was supposedrstill to remain in office, he might say, he' made no such statements; he produeed no such documents ; antitherefore he should not be held responsible for either. Responsibility would therefore attach to neither, Where then would he the retried). Of the House on 'such occasions ? No epplicaiion could he made to the Crown to remove a person who afted only .as a private individual ; and where then waa the Perliamentary check which it was imagined that Parliament might interpose on suh occasions ? if such a principle and 'precedent was admitted, it was difficult to say with what abuses it 'might hereafter be attended. He should' 'only riat, - that it any Aleivhsi of that Houst accepted an Office . upder the Crown, it was usual rot him instant. ly'to'iai7ates his seat,'and go hack to his• . Constituents as one who lied accepted, of such an effice. If the psi seoe instance was out attended to, that check would be rendered completely null, and the Law of Verliemenf. utterly of tie avail. To this it was that he felt 4niiOus to tilted elm attention of the HOuse, in the hope that those who urelerstood its forms bet ter'thart fiedi . il,eeirielitundertelee to clear up a paint which to hlto arpear6d to be 'of infinite iMportanee;* FOSTI,k cenfeeced that he should have rather felt eletewied if - he had acted as at) official person w the our, at the same time, holding ally office; but his cert . .' dfiFt, he argued, 'was riot tncensistent 'with the 'eider of 'a private Member of that House ; and he could nett help regarding the condua of the Gentle. man who had just at down, as unconstitutional in the hiotteii degree. ' If' no Gentleman had a right. to in. terfrie such as were in office, the frivilegee toe Howie would be abridged in a man. ci that Wouid oerrnti• against the spirit of the Cor.' et it ution The too the hail lately aded did riot neces. fierily tine! ) an , 'Fk had interf-red still more two. ears 4/ri where - - . he had Moved' for tot eis papers, and proposed severed public ineaeures, ere e w e er) • no 'l,ll:retlo(i' . hed been offered to his Ooreluet; He .cetiaiulk 'nnt, he said, in bffiCe ; butietia' a Member' of 'Pertiement, eon.' ceieco that 'he had not cost,' a right, letit that it ivas his duty' (0 aet. the ter, he was now pur s ue In regard to the reapriosibiloy that had been. alluded to, he coeeeived it reptignan , I,J etiefy Ingo; ciple of the' Constitution, and Is having a tendency to check freedom of Debate, to imagine that a Peti. jeee e could be presented to His' Mleety to -renjove . stray Ct,n111. 7 1113 . 0 from ' , Rice' for what he might say sir that 1--Loeeo 'Such a petition could only be pre. Sewed for comito9 put or that House, As the Input). iibiliry of the Chancellor of the Exchequer could t 6 hie of f ice out of that House, and riot t o his cendoet in it, I:ad he to'-!etts 'he said, in any fristutice; nb ChencellUr of the 'Exchequer out If 'Eh luuSe ther Ini hr pethape have been some room i,r tits, jatna:tveriions Hon.-Member ; but 4ch condoel, or any sub possible construdion cot-iltd) otoit'es;;lz deeled. tic cuncluded • ;;;)y with exprec pi n a hnre, that the Hon. Gentleman would see die ptopiiety olheredroppifT ill,' Matter, as the disens%ion could lead to no beneficial ohjt'a ; and d begge'ti that the lion. GtotiAnati would nut pcisiit r'.uiltinp, hint into an oflic'e tor which he felt no partici,' :ynkition. _ . - Ir. WINDH .af, in- a very happy. vein of !tu mour, inveighed against the equivocal situation and . con,ltin of the Right 11-n. (7.;-ntfeman, who seemed to have the duties of the office assigned to him, with out the eint)lum.:nts. 11e contended that the line of conduCl followed by the Right Him. Gentleman I was contrary to the usage, prattice, and principle . of 4he .Law of Parliatmni,• and on the ground of usage alone, was liable to i d It had been said, that the'House had no right to make a rept... - sentation to the hu- any thing (tine in that House : his Him. Friend, however, had no such idea, but merely Submitted to the House the ptopriety of inquiry into the subjen. The Right lion. Gentleman had said, that he had . right to make the Motions, as a private Member of the Howe ; but that Gentleman must certainly be.convinced that it was not the usual way of conduding the business of the House. 'The Right Hon. Gentleinan, he argued, might mislead the House in the several representations he might give them, and afterwards might plead exemption from re. sponsibility, as nut having been in office. It became highly necessary, therefore, that the House should have some responsible person to look to. There was no, law on the suhket, he would admit, but there was so much inconveniency attached to it, that it became a very proper subject 'of inquiry for the House. No Member appointed to any office under the Crown war at liberty to vote, or to retain his seat in that House, till duly re-eleded. • The principle of this regulation was obvious, and the restridion, he thought, ought also to be extended to expedants ; and on the same principle, would most likely have been done, could they have been with equal cer. tainty ascertained. If, therefore, expedants, corn. ing under the reason of the law, ought . to come under its operation • also, the Right HOnoUrable Gentleman ought certainly to vacate his sear, as before the House, and in the face of the public, he was putting himself forward in the place of ex. lienancy. The Right Hon. Gentleman says he is not in office; yet in the eyes of the House, and of the Country, he has long been executing all the duties, and exerting, perhaps, all the influence of a Chancellor of the Exchequer fur Ireland. He should only call upon the oldest Member of the House, and ask, if he had ever before observed so singular a phenomenon, a working Chancellor of the Ex. 'chequer, and a sleeping partner; the sleeping partner receiving all the emoluments—the labour. ing partner doing every thing gratuitously ; a Chancellor of the Exchequer with two heads, two mouths ; yet the speaking one without bread to eat. He would only ask, to which of the heads the House was to apply for information on public matters ? The official one was silent ; the speaking one de clined all . responsibility. It was for. the House to decide on a point so strange and ambiguous. The CHANCELLOR of the EXC:HEQUER said much entertainment had been introduced upon - a • dull point, while scarcely any thing was said to the question before the House, which merely re. garde(' the warehousing of home.made spirits in Ire land. see very little danger in the pre. cedent .from which so much mischief was ap, prehended, for : the example could not be very contagious, of those who undertook the labours of office, without the emoluments, which was the case of his Right Honourable Friend, Neither had his Right Honotirable Friend , proceeded to origi. nate any one measure which it was not equally competent for any other Member of the House to have undertaken. He was therefore at a loss to sec how any law had been violated ; and' until the time came when he could receive the emoluments of of. flee, and fully enter on the discharge of all its . du. ties ) he did not feel that his Right Hon. Friend was : bound to vacate his seat. The whole of the con. • versation which had arisen on this Bill he could not imagine to be exadly within order; f or i t was dif. ficult to reconcile it with a measure which had only in view to warehouse spirits in Ireland. Mr. SHERIDAN treated the subjea with much pleasantry. lt was acknowledged that the Right Hon. Gentleman was not obliged to vacate .his seat till he was in the actual receipt of the emoluments of the office. But was he not all a l ong exert i ng t h e influence which that office afford e d, and might he not be converting that infl uence to the very put. pose which it was the °Ned of th at wise regula. 'ion of Parliament to counteract and to defeat ? The Right Honourable Gentleman denies' that he hoicla any office, yer, however, as a mere individual, he undertakes arrangements, from which the most serious effeds may arise. He pledges his • word, as - an individual, to the Bank of Ireland, that' the issue of the Treasury Bills shall not inter. fere with the Loan. Does nut the Bank of Ireland look to him as having aded from authority in such r an assertion; or, if he is clothed with no authority, does-not an arrangement formed upon such grounds tend to shake the credit of that Bank ? •Mr. SHER I I. DAN very humorously compared the double-headed Chancellor of the Exchequer to the Munster in Shakspeare's Tempera ; not only two heads, but two voices, and these voices dissenting from each other. entered into al, ei:th:Jlitte defence of his Right Hon. Friend ('vlr. FosTeß), and ask. ed, .11 it was to he imputed to him as a crime that, by a previous discharge of any office, he had waived I, to his - Constituents hiS fitness aed ability fully to execute its duties, whenever ;h e y were officially and formally unfenced upon taa ? pr, , L4WRANCit entered into a variety of at : gmnents; to prove how near and anomalous was the situation in which the Right Hon. Gentleman stood, and hop completely it defeated the law which Parlia. ment 14 so wisely elorded to prevent such abuses. Mr. FR,ING'IS,' in explanation, said, that he never denied the stria right of the Right Hon. Gentlerwin to make what motions he pleased.; he only con:ended, that such conduit was contrary to the image of Parliament, and might afford a very dangerous precedent. , Mr. KINN/11111) contended, that the -Right lion, Gentleman :tad throughout aced as if he were. in possession• of. official power, and h e f o r one would have refused him his vote, on several occasionai did he not imagine that the Right Hon, Gentleman was ;ti=ling under the Atria . responsibility of a Minister: Ire could not but now disapprcve.of his condal, it was not fair to the country—To Ire. lana i it was ivsoliing'and degrading. Mr. G. j9IINSTON . R wishe4l to know if the Right Hon. Gentlein,in had aced merely as an in. dit , tibial in managing the arrangement with the Bank of Ireland tespeting the Treasury Bills ? - Mr. Hu mit wsoN thought the Bill before the Home of very great impiqtance to Itel And, . and wished it might be printed. .The question was then very generally called for, and die Bill was'read a second time, and ordered to be rimed. Oil the Motion that the Irish Vote of Credit Bill be r•Nid a second, !inlet . _ Mr. joitNs - roNr, repeated his question to Mr. FosTr a. respettiing the arrangement with the Irish Mr. FosTER denied having bad any immediate concern with that arrangement, which•he only un. dersrood from many quarters to - have taken place. After some more conversation on the same sub. jeft between Mr. SHERIDAN, Mr. FosTER, and Mr. JoHNsToNE, the Bill was read a first time, and ordered to be read a second time to-morrow. The Bill was then ordered to be printed. The Report of the India Budget was brought up, and the Resolutions agreed to. The . Report of the Comniittet of Ways and Means was then brought up, and, on the Motion that the Resolutions be 'read a second time, respect. ing the Holders of the Loyalty Loan, Mr. ADDINGTON rose to observe, that un. 'avoidable business prevented him from attending when that question was last before the House, but • when it was debated on a former occasion, a large majority of the, House had determined, that the Holders of the Loyalty Loan were not entitled to re-payment . before. 'the month of April, 1805.-- , That opinion had also the sanction of the highest Law Authorities in the Kingdom. The Resolutions were then agreed to, and a Bill ordered to be brought in upon them. ADDITIONAL STAMP DUTIES. The Order of the My being read for going into a Committee on this Bill, Mr. SHERIDAN rose to give his opposition to the increase proposed in the Schedule, particularly on Law proceedings ; and he must still continue to think, that the House would have been put into a much lamer way of understanding the Schedule, by having it printed in the Manner he had before re quested, with the new and the old Taxes contrast. ed in separate columns, opposite to each item. He understood the Right lion. Gentleman himself (Mr. PITT) had, for, the better guidance of his own un derstanding, a Schedule in his hand at that moment, arranged in that way ; and he could not see his rea. son for pertinaciously refusing the like aid to the House, which he was confident,. the late Chancellor of the Exchequer wo u ld h ave c h eer f u lly granted..— It was said, indeed, this alteration was to produce 800,0001. ; but for any judgment the House could form from this Schedule, it might be 8 millions.— The Hon. Member might say, every one must re. culled the old taxes ; - but though every man might have something ro look at to remind him of the Taxes on • Bills, Receipts, and Notes, yet it was impossible to remember the whole of s" complicated a system:. He believed, indeed, the Schedule had been actually printed in - the Manner he had described, by direttion of His Maj , sty's late Ministers, and had been seen by lion. Friends of his ; '4lnd he was, hence, the more at a loss to account. for its beirg withheld. The Right lion. Gentleman had, he understood, talked of this Schedule as a produttion of his own ; whereas, it differed in no tittle from that proposed by His Majesty's late Ministers, ex cept in the omission of a Tax ad (valorem on Con. vcyances, which, in the former Schedule, was esti mated to produce 300,0001. but which, he was sure, would produce soo,oool. and ought to have been adopted, He must again, however, depre. Cate as a principle, the heavy Charges upon 1.43 W proceedings : a principle so derogatory to the spirit of our Constitution, as that a man in search of redress, or right, should not be suffered to enter the portals of a Court of Justice, until Le shall have first purchased, at an heavy expense, a licence of the State for the liberty of even seeking a chance of redress; for this was, in fad, the operation of such a Tax, which was a bar against enter. ing the Courts of Justice. On any other thing, in the way of manufaCture or luxury, a T ax might be imposed, even to the prohibition of its use, without doing any considerable mischief: a Tax on spirituous liquors might be of vast advantage to society, but for certain financial considet.ttions ; but a Tax on Law Proceedings was, to all intents and pur poses, a violation of public justice. It, under any arbitrary Government a licence were to he paid for prosecuting or defending a suit, every man would call it a horrible Country ; but in this Free Nation it was not to be endured. He remetni)ered a strong and apposite remark of a very shrewd and discerning man upon this subject, Mr. H. Tooke, who observed, that it was boasted the Law Courts of this Country were open for every man who sought justice ; and 10 also was the London Tavern : but to a man who was destitute of money to obtain it, justice was as. far out of his reach in the one, as /axarier in the other. The Tax was besides a very dangerous pre cedent ; for a Minister might say, a Stamp Duty was . a handy way of raising money, and it might goon to an excess which would absolutely preclude men from 'seeking any redress at law. Even in the present . SchetfoTe, the Tax on proceedings in Chancery were raised to twenty_five per cent. This must prevent • men totally from seeking any redress in that Court, where the uncertainty of success would hardly he worth the risk of expense, and defeat utter ruin. It was totally sacrificing the public justice of the Coun. try for the sake of raising the Revenue. It .was open. ing the Courts to the rich, and totally excluding the poor and the oppressed from every chance of justice, whom it was the ()Ned of the Laws to proteet anti redress, free of any coarge, for they, contributed to the original charges for the administration of jut- tice in the payment of His Majesty's Judges. It was, in tad, to faring things to the original state previous to the. attainment of Magna Charta, when the Subject sustained the grievance of paying a li cence to the King for liberty to enter his Courts in search of jwice, and thus actually selling the jus. tice of the land, in violation of the principle of OHa► great Charter— " Multi vendemus nulli negamus justici;:n." It might be a desirable thing, he would allow, to discourage the spirit of litigation ; but this ought not to be done by terrifying suitors from seeking real right, by Taxes and Penalties ; the expellees - of Law were already sufficiently enormous and oppres sive, and it would be the duty of Government to reduce instead of increasing them. He objeeted also to the arr uLil tax upon Attorneys, to which they ought not to be liable more than men of other pro fessions ; thotrgh he would admit the original tax upon admission might have a salutary operation in keeping improper persons out of the profession.: He objected also to the tax on Insurance for Annuities, a• it would severely affeel a deserving class of peo. pie ; and he was the more surprized at its coming from a Right Hon. Gentleman who, in his Bill for the Income Tax, particularly excepted from the charge, the As s urance of Annuities. But by this tax, the pour Curate, who from a scanty pittance wished to contribute something during life, by way of assuring for his widow and children some means of existence on• his demise, would be severely in jured. NVishing, however, to separate those Clauses in the schedule which were peculiarly obnoxious, in order for future and fuller discussion, and not to impede those which were not so exceptionable, he moved, " That it be an instrudion to the Coq,- mit tee to divide this Bill into two Bills t if they shalt think Et." The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER.. thought that-the most proper place for the discus . sion of particular Clauses would be in the Cornmittee, -and ills/afore he would decline going Into them in the present stage of the Bill. He said, the paper which the Honourable Gentleman wished for, had been on the Table for some days, and if he had applied some time in the course of those days in reading what he appeared now co anxious to see, he • would, before that day,, have acquired the infor•. =don he was so desirous to obtain. Indeed he himself felt some regret that the Paper had not been printed, because, in that case, the Hon. Gentleman might have found some friend to read it for him, and prevent him from falling into the esregious'error of estimating at soo,oool. the Tax on Conveyances, which, .in the former Schedule, was estimated orly at . 60,0001. The. discussion of this day, he ob. served, opened pn a very different round from alai which had been taken by the opponents of the Bill on a former night. They had attacked the Bill on the principle that it would aa most op,iressively on that Profession of which he had the honour once to • be a Member, and to whose interest certainly he could not wish to ofrer any injury ; but he could , now say, that in the conversation he 11.3(1 held with certain m,mbers of that profession, they seemed to have very difFerent feelings from thosL: professed for them by their advocates in that House ; And though . each individual might not exaaly approvC all tuts items of increase in the Schedule, yet, in general.' they were - acceded to, as circumstances called for by the exigencies of the limes. With - resped to the very enormous increase that was stated by a tiearnei and [lon. Member (Dr..LAWR ENCR) ) to acctue.on der this 'Schedule, upon Procee.,,tils is the Civil Courts it' was ao efft,il certainly .not, in tended, .hut arose nut of aMisconee i ti on in wording the . and norpteci. - ely 'considering the-number of lines anti word 4 which constitute a folio in the l'rocee4ings of those Courts ; and if the Tax tsere to attach' in the manner expressed in the Schedule; upon those Who sought the luxury of- profectitir g Suits in those Courts, it certainly would, like most luxuries, he pretty mirth d by the excess.ulexpence : fig upon inquiry, it appeared that in some cases it was necessary tu begin a Suit in one of those Courts bf a state!nent occupying 4.03 pages, as preliminiity to - the commencement of any adual proceedings; ionic thing arigh t l w i n f erre d f rom that saint le of t he . lengt% to w h ic h proceedings in those Courts usual- ' ly extended. It was, however, an error he would own, 71A, I.,..itunately, one of a nature npt Vert likely to escape detedion; for, in lad, the only increase inicGoed to be made was a general propor" titiO of _ie-third upon the rates in general. Nowt as to the oblec'tion against the principle of taxing Law Proceeotngs, G.:litlemen would recoiled that it Nv.,i one of no very modern adoption, but c0m1.,: induced in the reig n mof King William a period a our history not very favourable to unconstitutional measures, and sinci taken up and adopted by suc cessive Parliaments; and he could bet no reason whY lAA , Proceeding , : were not as fairly objeets of lax• ation as oilier transactions of intercourse between men in society. With resped to the plea of injury to the Poet, it was the peculiar charadsristic of our Constitution to assign a nilde to them of seekiog justice in forma pauprrir. But he utterly denied that this was a Tax on Justice, as the cost must fall upon the party maintaining An unjust suit; and so far was he from coinciding in the argument of the Hon, Member,, fur opening the Law Courts for Li tigation without expellee, that he thought it a g 9.4 thing to discourage it. The Hon. Member has said, that a . Tax on Law proceedings was a . viola • lion of Ma a Charta, and a Sale of Public Justice. He totally denied the inference, and asserted, that the princip:e of Magna ChArta was only against the practice of .:etting up justice to Auction, and de ciding in favour of the highest bidder. He would nor, for the present, go more into the arguments of the lion, Gentleman ; but regretted the Honoura• ble Member had not resorted to the information he might have had from the Papers on the Table. Mr. SHERIDAN answered, that it would be 1 .tedious operation indeed, for Members to be oblir i to read the Papers, one after another, instead of 110• ingit printed. Dr. LAIrRENCE, at considerable length, °P . posed the increased Taxes, as operating with pec"' liar injustice and severity upon the proceedings in the Courts where he prattised, and more especially , t in the Ecclesia st ic a l, w h ere t h e rate o f c h arge viola" now he raised to 50 per cent . w hil e t h e rate the Court of Chancery would he only 25. The Ri g ht lion. Gentleman, had wasted his wit in alluding. the voluminous length of proceedings in' the Cr" Courts, ore of which he bad seletied for obler v.3 : f tion ; but from th e ef , ta bli s h e d or d er an d nature ,;,, proceeding in those C ourts , i t was necessary, tl in many instance s , t h e preliminary ara rimenrs sho ut , : be of considerable at we ll ;s the I„hsecittei