The Sun.
London, England, 1833-05-17 00:00:00

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fished, in the month of May, 1823; Nit .' terrible were thlr
4r
effects of the aforesaid At t, suclii'ivereS4o ruin
,and uii
that it had produced, that on the -g-11; 1822, ao:tiljir
was, by the then advisers of hislltaillatit(of whom th k,
Right Honourable Robert Peel was-one 4 iprispOt inti:, the-then'
House of Commons, and was afters pd into a law,
postponing the abolition of the one-pou'n'd notes for eleven
years longer; that an important part of the Act of 1819 was
thus repealed ; that an acknowledgment was thus virtually
made by an Act of the House itself, that it had, principally by
the said Right Hon. Robert Peel, been induced to act unwisely,
and to do great wrong to the people by the said Act of 1819.
" That, if the Act of 1822 had been wise, if it had put a stop
to the wrong done and still doing by the Act of 1819, it came
very tardily, it waited till prodigious ruin had been effected;
but that this Act of 1822, while it postponed the abolition of the
one pound notes for eleven years, left the gold payment part of
the Act of 1819 in full force: so that, while the issuers of
paper money were thus invited and encouraged to inundate the
country with one pound notes, they and the holders of the.,:
notes were left exposed to constant, and, first or last, certain
ruin; that this ruin (of which the said Right Hon. Robert
Peel and his colleagues were duly warned) was not slow ill
making its appearance; that, towards the close of the yea!
18f25, the bubble, thus created by the law itself, began to burst,
and that, before the end of January, 18X, a hundred banks
had stopped, not having gold wherewith to pay their notes, the
whole kingdom being thereby plunged into alarm and confu.
sion, thousands upon thousands of families (descending to the
very artisans and labourers) being brought down to beggary;
and, such being the state into which the country had been
brought, that the Ministers themselves declared, in Parliament,
that, at one time, the country had actually been within forty-
eight hours of barter, that is to say, destitute of all measure of
value, and in a state of utter confusion and anarchy.
" That, with all this sad experience of the effects of his mea-
sures, the said Right Hon. Robert Peel (still one of his Majesty's
Most Honourable Privy Council, and then become one of his
Majesty's principal Secretaries of State) gave his sanction to a
Bill (which became an Act on the 22d March, 1826) for agalti
abolishing the one-pound notes at the end of three yearti nert-
withstanding the postponement of such abolition provided fe't
in the Act of 1822; that by this Act of 1826 the nation v..:0
again plunged back into the low prices, and in effect double
taxes, produced by the unjust Act of 1819; that the ruin and
misery of all the industrious classes, and the wealth and luxury
of those who live on the taxes, have gone on increasing from
that day to this, and that at this moment there appears to be
no human being able to discover any quiet way of extricatih
the kingdom from its present state of unparalleled difficulty and
danger.

hat, contemplating these mighty calamities, thus healed
on his Majesty's industrious and dutiful people, and further
contemplating the probable danger therefrom to be apprehended
to the safety of his Majesty's authority and throne, and clearly
tracing a great part of these to the want of knowledge in the
Right Hon. Sir Robert Peel, this House, reserving to itself
the right of adopting further and other proceedings in the pre.
mises, deems itself bound, in duty to his Majesty, and from
an anxious regard to the well-heir; of his people, not to leave
them again exposed to calamities and dangers proceeding from
the same source; and that, therefore, this House wilt present
a loyal and dutiful address to his Majesty, praying that his
Majesty will be graciously pleased to dismiss the Right lion.
Sir Robert Peel from his Majesty's Most Honourable Privy
Council."
The SPEAKER wished to know whether the statement
read by the Hon. Member was intended merely as a part
of his speech, or as resolutions which he intended to pro-
pose to the House.
Mr. COBBETT said he intended to propose them as
resolutions.
The SPEAKER said his object was to prevent irregu-
larity, and not to throw any obstacle in the way of the
Hon. Member. It was irregul .1- for a Member to read
his speech, and it was unusual, and would he most incon-
venient, to allow any Hun. Member to record on tbe
journals of the House, in the shape of resolutions, a state-
ment of his own views and arguments upon any subject.
Such statements were better fitted for pamphlets than for
the journ ils of that House.—(Laughter, and Hear.)
Mr. COBBETT would propose the resolutions he had
read, and leave it to the House to adopt or reject them.
The House might, if it thought fir, refuse to insert them
on the journals. With that he had little to do. He hid
heard a great deal of responsibility of public men, but he
had seldom heard of its practical application. Re-ponsi-
hility did not in his mind mean simply that a pu,die man
was liable to be scolded or reprimanded. According to
his notion, responsibility meant that a man should he
reformedwith
ithpubiillc omuesne
uopfonCi;hmemsanmnse
prdidincitispideuwtyh,iciht
really and substantially accountable for his acts; and if
regulated ft
hoe
u pidreid eena
Itt h transactions of ordinary life. He was going
to prove a case of great injustice and wrong to the public,
and it would not he his fault if a reformed Parliament did
not interfere in such a way as would be a warning in fu-
ture to public men. Nobody could deny that the Bill of
1819 was most unfortunate and partial in its operation.
This was asserted over and over again by the Hon. Mem-
bet. for Whitehaven (Mr. Attwood). It was also the
opinion of Mr. Ricardo, and the present Secretary had PO
strongly expressed his opinions that he (Mr. Cobbett) ex-
pected to have his vote on this occasion. That Hon.
Member had gone so far as to propose a reduction in the
standard of value, and had denounced the Act of 1819 as
'lie of public plunder. The present Premier also said
that it would be most unjust to pay in specie debts con-
tracted in a depreciated paper currency, and it was
difficult to explain how that Noble Lord could with
consistency remain in office without attempting to
remedy the injustice dons by the Act of 1819.
He was surprised that the country gentlemen had sub-
mitted to that Act; but perhaps the question with them
was whether, in order to do justice, they would not have
to give up all they possessed to the Jews, by whom they
had been already greatly injured. In the 21 years men-
tioned in his resolutions the-average price of wheat was
I 1 s. a bushel, and in 1822 the price was ss. lid. a
bushel. There was a proof of the effort of the Bill; and
it must be remembered that wheat was the last article to
decline in price. Southdown wool, in the 21 years be-
fore 1819, sold for 2s. 11 id. !pound ; from 1519 to
1826, wool of the same quality sold for l Id. a pound ;
and from 1826 to 1833 it sold for 9J. a pound. How
dreadful, then, must have been the loss to the farmer. In
many counties the wool used to pay the rent ; hut would
it do so now ? Such were the facts ; and they must be
tenied, or the resolution must be supported, or the House
'oust say it had not courage to do its just deity. Again,
witb iron the mischief had been equally great. In the
tirst period he had alluded to, the price of pig iron was 8/.
per ton, in the second period 41. per ton, and in the third
period it was 21. 10s. per ten. He therefore contended
,hat there bad been mighty mischief done ; that that mis-
chief was occasioned by the Bill of 1819 ; and that the
House was hound, in justice to the country, to make an
example of the chief mover to en bad a result. The Right
Hon. Secretary for the Colonies the other night, when
speaking of the distress in the West Indies, bad revived
an absurdity he had thought had been buried with its first
promulgator, the late Lord Liverpool. That nonsense was
laughed at enough during the life of Lord Liverpool,
and when that Minister was buried he eh'sught the
cause of the laugh was buried too. But :he Right Ho-
nourable Secretary had revived it, and told the West
India Proprietors that their distresses were not caused
by the discussions of the subject, or tbe interference of
the Legislature, but by over-production of sugar and coffee.
Oh, no! it was not by over-prodoction of sugar, but by
unde- production of money. In coffee there had been an
mmense fall in price. In sugar the same. The price of
sugar from 1797 to 1819 was Sta. per cwt., front 1819 to
1826 it was 265. per cwt., and from 1826 to 1833 it was
only 225. per cwt. And what was the cause of that fall?
Why, the Bill of 1819. That was the true cause of the
Mistress of the West Indians. They were compelled to pay
to much interest upon mortgages with sugar at 225. per
cwt. as they were when they got 82s. per cwt. And yet
he doubted not that if there were any West India Proprie-
ors present they would be found voting against his reso-
utions, and thereby affirming that the Bill which had
destroyed them was of no consequence. Again, in the
East Indies, the effects of the Bill had been equally destruc-
tive. When there was a paper currency indigo was Bs.
per pound, but now it was only 4s. 3i. per pound. That
was the consequence of the Bill of 1819, and every altera-
tion in the value of money must of neoeseity produce great
effects. He imputed no bad motives to the Right Hoe,
Baronet; and he knew that Mr. Tierney, Mr. Husicisson,
and others, were equally culpable with the Right
Baronet. But then the Right Hon. Baronet bad brought
the Bill forward, and the House ought to mark his
conduct,
bith)avingled to such frightful results. He
(complained that the First Lord of the
ir.co Cobbett)
Admiralty and the Secretary at War had left the House.
He bad a right to do so; for he slimed the support
both,(lot the
of
and that
Bill
of slß9iliwwasu to notimaalkletwheony ReigmhtorHeopnieoputriafbulie.
Baronet had to answer for. There was the Bill of 1822.
e object
Sow be had often heard the Right Hon. Baronet snort
andidly and virtuously confess his errors and abandon his
'aloe notion,, and he trusted he would now pursue that
,00d course. Nor would such a recantation he of novelty
won the subject under consideration. In 1819 the Right
Honourable Baronet had abandoned his mistaken notions
d former days; in 1822 he had again renounced his pie-
e 7'
be
doctrines, and in 1826 be had done the like. be
,they evening the Noble Lord (Althorp) had said he could
sot, as an honest man, vote for the propo,ition o the
Hon. Member for Wbitehaven, for it would depr, ciate
the value of money. Now had that Bill no re,eiroilante
o the Bill of 1822 ? Why, the Principle of the two
measures was precisely the same. But in 1822 the Go.
vernmsnt of which the Right Hon. Baronet was one hail
thatlupon the motions they had made.
intended to make papfe-raosey a legal tender. FrOUI