The Sun.
London, England, 1847-05-01 00:00:00

his resourees for the sake of ptirchasing Irish property,
For his own part, he thought that there would be very •
few. He had never been a party, either in the House
or out of it, to the cry against the present Government,
or to swelling the clamour on the other side of the water,
and unwilling as he was to connect himself with any
party in the State, he would give his Earnest support
to the Noble Lord, if the Government were willing to
look this Irish difficulty in the face. He would honestly
and heartily render his support. The country had
hitherto been governed by the Protestant Irish aristo-
cracy, but that system could no longer be supported, and
they must turn to the democracy if they wished to im-
Trove it. For his own part, he believed that the only re-
medy was to be found in a separate legislation. although
he was one of the last to say that Ireland could exist
without the assistance of England, for, unless that as-
sistance was held out, he believed that IrelliA might as
well be sunk to the bottom of the sea. But yet, although

he was no advocate for the severance of the countries,
the only remedy, in his opinion, was in the institution of
a domPstie Icgi4lation.—(Cheers.)

Mr. SPOONER regretted that the Hon. Mewber who
kid just eat down, had started with the assurance that

he w(.101 keep to the poinf, when he had spolt‘n upon
every subject but the one which was immediately b-fore
the House. The lion. Gentleman had complaimdthrtt
whole of the present"pressure was owing to the course
which the Bunk of England had pursued in the manage-
ment of their capital, and great reference had been made

to the l,an of the 8,000,0001., as if that lad been any
particular element in the suffering which had been en.
(lured of late by all the commercial elltsaes. Bat what
was the case I Why, the Bank. in the granting of ti-leis
last charter, had been expro,sly charged to keep to t
banking business, and were told that the issues, could
only be made in a particuar manner. On this point
they were expressly restricted. Well, they had kept to
their banking business, they had not attempted to inter-
fere with the circulation. The two departments were
entirely separate, and in his.- opinion the directors had
acted wisely. They had not overstepped the terms of
their charter, and they found that they had an abund•
ance of mpney in their coffers, and they had not hesitated
to cash the good commercial paper which was proffered

for their acceptance. They had conferred a great benefit
on the whole of the community, and had only acted as
every other banker would have done. But geld went
out of the country, and the specie in the hands of
the Bank was reduced. The pressure ensued, but with
that the Bank had nothing to do ; but now, when the
exchanges were in our favour, when the balance of
trade had turned, then there was a great outcry raised
respecting the conduct of the Bank. Let them look to
the balance of trade, and they would see that although
so much gold bad gone out of the country, the influx of
corn now would have to be paid for in goods.---(1h-ar,
hear.) The Hon. Member had alluded to the conduct of
the Emperor of Russia, who, according to common re-
port, had bought 2,000,000/. in the British funds, and
he had represented it as an act of great magnanimity on
his part, asserting that it was likely to improve the state
of the British funds. The Emperor of Rus-ia had just
in the same way come to the assistance of the Batik of
France. But was that an act of magnanimity ? They
knew his character, and that ambition formed a
striking feature in it, and must therefore be assured that
some other object than.that of merely assisting the Bank of
England had actuated him, even if this remark were true.
He would not insinuate improper motives to that foreign
power, but the Emperor of Russia might have an inte-
rest in securing the subserviency of France or of Prussia,
through the medium of bis great despotic influence ; not
so much with a view of attaining any great advantage
in either of these two countries, as to gain him some in
fluence over England. The Emperor of Russia, it was
quite evident, could never hope to obtain any influence in
this country through his great military forces ; but he
might do so by ntanostivering with the finances of
Europe ; and it was evident from the Emperor's
recent acts, that his policy was directed to the at-
tainment of that end. The Act of 1819 and

1844 must be got rid of before this country could
prosper, or avert such an evil as the one he had just
ventured to suggest. Already they were witnessing some
of the bad effects of those measures, and unless the
House took some precautionary steps to avert it. they
would inflict a still severer blow upon the country. The
Right Hon. Baronet the Member for Tamworth, it was
true, had supported those measures with a good deal of
plausibility, and had asked them for a definition of the
term pound, and used other specious arguments to in-
duce the House to pass h:s Currency Bills, but still he
(Mr. Spooner) wanted to know if the House was pre-
pared to continue a system which had always led, by
easy and regular steps, to periodical depression in th e
money and commercial interest of the country.
Sir R. PEEL—WeII, what is a pound ?—(Hear and
laughter.)
Mr. SPOONER said, short though his experience bad
been in that House, he had seen and heard enough to
convince him that the Right Hon. Baronet was too great
an adept, and ready at-debating in that House, to render
it an easy task for an Hon. Member. like himself, to
grapple with him in a discussion of this sort ; but he
begged to ask the Right Hon. Baronet where Mr. Pitt
would have been when he came down to that House to ask
for their support during the war, if he had allowed
himself to be put down by parties who culled
upon him for a definition of the term pound. Well,
now, what was a poand ?—(Hear, hear, and laughter.)
What was a pound at the time of the Reformation.—
(Hear, and laughter.) Hon. Members might laugh,
but Le would tell them that the country could not long
sustain such panics as those they were now witnessing,
without, indeed, the whole frame-work of society were
suffered seriously to he disturbtd, if not entirely
broken up.—(Hear, hear.) But the Right Honour-
able Gentleman had asked him what was a pound ?
lie could not answer that question directly, but he
would tell the Right Hon. Baronet that the pound of the
present day greatly exceeded in value the pound which
existed et the time the 800,000,000/. of national debt
was contracted.—(Hear, hear) Ho therefore warned
the House. in the words of the la'e Sir H. Peel, that if
they persisted in continuing the present monetary
policy of the country, they would eventually bring
ruin and destruction upon the nation.—(Hear, heat.)
He never thought that the state of the currency prior to

the year 1819 was at all in a state of perfecibin. Lie
believed that the operation of the measure of 1844 would
prove a serious evil. There were at present many mer-
cantile houses in this country which were obliged to re-
fuse a great number of their orders, because they did
not know that they would be able to obtain gold for the
payment of the labourers. The conseqcence of the mea-
sure would be, that they would keep the gold in the
country, but they would starve the people.
Mr. MUNTZ would support the measure of the Go-
vernment upon the same ground as he would have sup•
ported the measure of the Noble Lord the Member for
Lynn (Lord G. Bentinck), the only objection he had to
the grant was, that it was not large enough. It was
said that the finances of the country were in a bad
state. Why, it was the fault of the Government that
the finances were in that condition. He believed that
the Right Hon. Baronet did perfectly right in bringing
forward his measure of 1844; it was based upon a per-
fectly sound principle, -and it was the fault of the Go-
vernment that when assistance was required for
Ireland they were to be met with an objection
respecting the finances of the country.—(Hear, hear.)
Mr. M. J. O'CONNELL was glad to see that this
proposition had obtained so large a share of support,
and he thought if the Noble Lord opposite (Lord G.
Bentinck) had made a less demand than four millions a

year for four years, when he introduced his plan for the
construction of railways in Ireland. that he would have
received much greater support than he did on that oc-
casion. The present motion proposed to give assistance
only to those railways which had paid up half of the
capital, and which were, therefore, of a bona fide
character, and he was of opinion that it would
have effected a great ,deal of good, in giving
employment and mitigating the distress under
which the country at present laboured. In the
neighbourhood of Mallow there were 3,000 per-
sons at present employed in the Southern and Western
Railway, and there could be no doubt that if assistance
were extended to the present measure, proposed that the
surplus labour of Ireland would find ample employment.
lie regretted very much that her Majesty's Government
intended to withdraw the grant for the reclamation of
_ _

the waste 'studs of Icelan—d, which had been announced

to-night, for the first time, by the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer, and he was quite certain that such an intimation
would be received with great dissatisfaction in Ireland.
The Government ought to give their reasons for aban-
doning the Waste Lands' Bill, and he was anxious that
such should be done, as the people of Ireland were an-
xious about it.

Sir R. PEEL said, that during the whole course of
the discussion, it was his last wish to throw any obsta-
cles in the way of the Government. They were all
aware of the difficulties by which they were surrounded,
and even at the present moment it was with great reluc-
tance that he differed from the Noble Lord,
the first Minister of the Crown. He opposed
the measures of the Noble Lord, the Member for Lynn,
far a similar object, and he felt bound to say that that
proposition was less open to objection than the present,
tor it was one general in its nature, and not intended to
favour one more than another. But the Bill proposed
only to assist one or two railways at present in ex-
istence, without having reference to any future schemes.
This he considered to be a plan open to the
charge of impartiality. He should have been
very much disposed to have lent an attentive ear,
to the Government, if they had urged in favour of this
grant, the argument that the present was a special case;
but such reasons were not urged, and he found himself
conscientiously bound, unwilling as he was to offer any
Opposition to the Government, to give his vote against
them. The Right Honourable Gentlemen might say,
that out of the 8,000,0001., he had 625,0001. to
spare. Now, if such was the case, he had
a right to increase the balances in his exchequer.
The loan ought to be an advantage in which all parts of
the United Kingdom should equally share, and he must
object to any loan from the Exchequer in which
Scot-
land and the other portions of Great Britain did not
participate.—(Hear, hear.) Why, he had been told that
so highly thought of was this railway in the south of
Ireland, that it did not depend for its support upon Irish
shareholders, but that great English capitalists hud come
forward, and invested large sums of money in the under-
taking. If this Dublin and Cashel Railway did not be-
long to these needy and destitute shareholders, but if it
did belong to the men of substance, such as the Right
Hon. Gentleman behind me—(Great laughter)—
Mr. HUDSON—I do not
possess a single share in
an Irish railway.'
Sir ROBERT PEEL—The Right Hon. Gentleman
denies the holding of a share in an Irish railway, but
he meant to say that if men like the Right Hon. Gentle-
man, non-resident in Ireland, but good
speculators as (o
the prospects of gain—if these were the men to be
benefited, he would ask on what grounds was the present
measure propo.ed. Liflumiccd by such consideration.,
be forma hiinselt obliged to record his vote against the
Government—(Hear, hear.) He did not think
as could hare resisted the temptation of a