The Sun.
London, England, 1830-03-04 00:00:00

WORCESTER COUNTY MEETING.

On Tuesday a County Meeting was convened it.
the Guildhall, Worcester, by John Scott, Esq.,
High Sheriff, pursuant to two requisitions, calling
upon him so to do, in consequence of the prevailing
distress. One requisition was signed by 240, and
the other by 160 freeholders. The latter wa'
couched in the following energetic language:—

" TO THE HIGH SHERIFF OF THY COUNTY OF WORCESTER.

" We, the undersigned, having heard with astonishment
the intimation cortained in his Majesty's Speech to Par-
liament, that the existing distress is only partial (thus
showing a degree of ignorance in his Majesty's Govern-
ment as to the true state of the country,) and knowing, as
we do, that it is general, unprecedented, and most appall
do hereby request you to call a meeting of the Free-
holders and other inhabitants of the county, to take into
consideration the causes of such distress, and to adopt such
measures for alleviating the same as the meeting shall then
think expedient."

Colonel LYGON, the member for the county o

Worcester, would beg of the agricultural interest
not to be led away by the panacea of reform. At
all events, if they agreed to petition for reform, he
hoped there would be two petitions. There was a
peat cry for reform during the distress of 1817, and
it was said in the petitions that it could not be re-
moved without reform; but what was the fact?
They had since risen to a state of great prosperity.—
(Loud cries of " No, no.")—He begged they would
hear him ; he referred to the years 1823, 24, and
25, when agriculture and commerce were in a high
state of prosperity. He was perfectly aware of the
existing distress ; he felt for- it, and he hoped no
One would think be underrated its extent.

The Rev. Mr. PEARSON felt that great distress

revailed, and he had therefore attended the meet-
ing to sign his name to a petition, stating their
grievances, and praying for that relief they so
urgently required.
Mr. R. SPOONER (the banker) had no wish to
arraign the present Ministers; he did not wish to
see them displaced; but be wished calmly to call
their attention to the state of the country, and to
open their eyes to the mistake they had made in de-
claring the distress to be partial, when it was gene-
ral, tinprecedented, and overwhelming.—(Cheers.)
—He had no wish to curry favour with the present
Administration, but it was with pain he differed
from them.—(The speaker proceeded to eulogize
their conduct as to the Catholic Bill, and was
cheered at this part of his speech most entbusiasti-
clly.)—lt was painful to differ from such Ministers,
hat he would not desert his duty as an Englishman.
Their gallant City Member had called on them not
In he led away by reform ; but he would call on
them not to be led away by the gallant Colonel,
whose speech only went to prove that it was for
want of reform that the prosperity of 1823 had so
soon passed away. The measures which had de-
stroye4 it would never have been passed by a re-
formed Parliament. -Wherever he went he found
penury and distress prevailing, and one general
groan was heard from one end of the country to the
other, praying for redress. The first resolution he
had to move would give a flat denial to the partial-
tlistre s-statement. The next would state an opi-
nion of the causes of the distress. This he confessed
was a subject which he approached with difficulty,
because he might be supposed to be personally inte-
rested in assigning one of the causes. Some might
suspect his motives.—(No, no.)—He begged, on
the honour of an Englishman, to declare that he
abjured all personal feelings.—(The speaker here
entered into the currency question at great length,
for the purpose of showing that it was one of the
causes of the existing distress.)—He had no objec-
tion, he said, to a gold standard ; but contended
that the present standard was not an equitable one,
as it gave an advantage to the creditor over the
debtor. In 1825, the present Lord Goderich, then
Mr. Robinson, boasted of the prosperity of the
nation, and of its being fixed on a rock; but in five
months afterwards the rock disappeared, and it was
then attempted to make the world believe that this
national rock of prosperity had been run away with
by some half-dozen country bankers, who had ex-
tended their issues beyond their capital. The
remedies he had to propose were, first, an inquiry;
and next, that the House should reform itself. Mr.
Canning had said, the return to a metallic currency
would put a sovereign in the pocket and a fowl in
the pot of eve!), poor man. He wished to ask
them if such had been the case. He wished to see
that prediction verified, for he felt if England were
to stand, it could only be a well-fed, well-employed,
well-taught, and then, he was sure, a grateful
people.—(Loud cheers.)—Then, indeed, pros-
perity would be dealt out through the ancient
portals of the Constitution. He was convinced,
that if they had a reformed House of Commons,
there would be more intelligence infused, and fewer
blunders committed. He hoped. he should not be
arraigned for what he was going to say by. the At-
torney-General, tut he could not help stating, that
;he Duke of Wellington had made a great mistake
when, in reply to Earl Stanhope's suggestion of a
paver standard, he observed that the standard was
the same as in 1797. Now the fact was, in that
year coined silver to any amount was a legal tender,
and Lord Bexley had once observed, that the na-
tional debt might be paid in crooked sixpences.—
The case was now quite different; for when the new
coinage was issued, the King's proclamation declared
it only to be a legal tender to the amount of M 5....—.
He appealed to the citizens of that town, whether
the retail trade was not in a distressed state. It was
said they wanted to get the one and two pound notes
again; they wanted no such thing. A metallic
standard was far better; what they wanted was a fair
adjustment of that standard. The speaker concluded
by moving the following resolutions:--
" That this Meeting has heard with astonishment that
his Majesty's Minister!, at the opening of Parliament, de-
glared the present distress to be partial, and that the retail
traders in the country towns were in a state of prosperity.
" That nothing but the grossest and most culpable
ignorance of the real state of the country could have in-
duced these declarations, inasmuch as this meeting knows
and feels that the distress is general and unprecedented.—
That all interests are suffering in a most alarming degree,
and that the retail trade in particular never was in so
ruinous and depressed a situation as it is at the present
time; and this meeting feels it its duty to declare most
unequivocally that the only persons on whom the geheral
mistress has not yet fallen, are those who are living upon
the proceeds of taxes and fixed money obligations, in the
shape of dividends, pensions, salaries, and sinecures, ori-
ginally granted in paper money, but now levied in geld
motley, at least 30 per cent, more valuable than the money
in which they were granteti.
_

That in the opinion of the present meeting, great
part of the distress of the country is to be attributed to the
alteration in the curreicy,—a measure adopted without
any inquiry as to the elect it would have on the indus-
trious classes of society, or as to the justice or injustice of
the measure.
" That this meeting approves of returning to a metallic
standard of value, but is of opinion that the standard fixed
upon by Parliament is unjust, and will he nand impossible
to be maintained ; that a single standard of gold coin con-
vertible unto bullion, and free to be exported at the will of
the holder, never was the legal standard in this kingdom
till it was made so by the act commonly known as 311..
Peet' Act. . . .

" That it appears to this meeting, that the inevitable
rffect of adopting the present standard of value is to reduce
all the prices of property and labour generally,—at least to
the ancient level which existed in 791,--at the same time
leaving all the taxes, debts, and obligations of the country
upreduced ; and this meeting is of opinion, that an opera-
-404 of thin kind must have the effect of doubling the real
weight and the real value of all taxes, debts, and obliga-
Sions—a tremendous measure, which is not more unjust
and atrocious in principle, than it is cruel and ruinous in
operation.
tg That the effect of adopting this standard was never
oontemplated by Parliament, is clearly proved by reference
to the arguments used by the proposers of the measure ; it
baying been distinctly alleged by them, that the alteration
produced in the value of money would riot he more than
tour per cent., whereas it is now admitted by all parties not
to be !es* than 25 per cent.

"'That the full effect of this measure has not yet been
uoarly felt, the various palliations which have been conti-
nual!), adin n isten d having prevented its coming into full
pperation; and that the argument' now used by the ori-

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Mock ock 242 40 India for Account
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