Star.
London, England, 1824-02-24 00:00:00

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foundation of, an important collection, and t.,
duildingin which they would be placed would form a
receptacle for treasivie Of that kind—(fienr,*.ltee}+l
and licshotdd hope that the example would be foil
by evera.lietriotic Gent)etstsin ia the eountrl; by wvihtil
means thme would be established a collection in Ent-
land of the finest specimens of the Arts, in a manner
eeculiatly worthy,of this nation, and not composed of,
the pleader of palaces or the spoils of- altars—(Cheers).
;The whole sum requited for that most desitable. object
would be at the utmost 60,0001. and to supply which it
liewatweessary toast of Parliament a special vote out of
410415 e resources to which he had alluded. He thought,
Moine would Sanction that expenditure, which would
ye the surplus as.alreadfstated for the years 1823 and
824, namely, 2,763,0001. But before he proceeded to
I state "to' the House the views of his Majesty's Govern-
ment of the mode in which that surplus should be re-
duced, he could cot avoid, indeed he felt it his duty to
~.
enter into some detail, particularly as applicable to
the Funds. The Committee was aware that the state
of public credit was such as very much to facilitate the
'further reduction of 'the interest of our debt; and look-
ing to the present situation of the country with
respect to her connection with Foreign Powers, there
happily existed no grounds for expecting that that state
of peace and prosperity would be interrupted—(Hear I)
It therefore became the duty of Government to reduce
the interest of that portion of the public debt on which
the highest rate of such interest was paid ; and that the
Committee would see was the Four per Cents.. The
amount of the public debt which bore that rate of in-
terest (four per cent.) in England and Ireland was se-
venty-five millions ; and the grounds on which Goiiern-
ment felt itself entitled to pursue that course he should'
shortly state to the Committee. In the first place, per-
haps, he ought to state how the law stood with reference
to those securities ; because the law applicable to them
differed very much from that which applied to the Five
per Cents. which the holders of them had agreed to ex-
change for Four per Centi. a few years ago. In the
former instance, the Five per Cents., Government were
not bound to give any notice to the holders of those
securities of their intention to alter or pay them off.
It was competent to Parliament to enact, that any
person bolding them, who at the expiration of four
weeks did not dissent from the plan of exchange
proposed, should be paid off; and everybody knew
ale completely successful result of that measure.—
With respect to the Four per-Cents. the law somewhat
differed, ax a notice of six months to the holders was
necessary of the intention to pay them off; and there-
fore if theoinciple of diisenting should be applied to
elms iberfsold not be paid off until the expiration of
ail weeikelt least, which would probably bring us to
October ness. What, therefore, he should propose was,
that to all holy of Four per Cent. Stock notice should
be given that t;:ose securities would be paid elf; those
held by such persons as should within six weeks from
the date of such notice consent to accept of 1001. bear-
ing an interest of three and a half per cent. in lieu of
1001. Four per Cent. Stock, and that the proportion to
be paid off should be one-third of the whole sum that
should remain unexchanged; that is, suppose one-third
of the holders of Four per Cent. Stock should assent to
the proposed exchange, there would remain fifty mil-
lions to be paid off. . He should therefore propose that
one-third of these fifty millions should be paid off in
October next. Should, however, no assents come in,
thee there wind(' be one-third. Of thp whole seventy-five
millions to be paid off. In one case, there would- be
twenty-five mahout (one-third of seventy-five millions);
in the other, betweenn-sixteen tad "seventeen millions, or
one-third of fifty millicins, to be paid off in October. The
Option. intended to be given to assentors was, that the
Three and a Half per Cent. Stock to be created for them
_should not be paid off until October ; thus placing the
(driers of this new 3i per cent. • stock on the same
' ..ting as the holders of the. old 31 per cent. stock.—
In transactions of that important nature it could hardly
be supposed that such an offer as that to which he had
'alluded would be accepted, unless accompanied by some
advantage to the party to whom the offer was made;
the certainty that such security should remain ocustand-
ing for a given time, was an advantage to the holder,
therefore he (the Chancellor of the Excltequer) proposed'
that a bonus should accompany the offer, by a stipula-
tion that those. securities (now three and a half per cent.)
should not be paid off for five years, at least, from the
date of their issue ; a bonus must be given of some kind
-or other to induce men to accept of the-proposed offer,
and he thought it more advantageous to the country
that such bonus should be given in time rather than. in
money—(Hear, hear). - Such was the outline of that
portion of his proposed plan. With respect to guar-
dians and proprietors-of the Font- per Cents. who may
be residing out of the country, care would be taken to
secure to them ample time for recording their assent to
it. If the result of this measure should be to convert
the whole of the Four per Cent. Stock into Three and a
half per Cents. or that all should be paid off, the con-
sequence would l a saving of a half per cent. of the
intetest on the whole sum of seventy-flee millions,
or 375;0004' per annum (Hear, hear). If, then,
Parliament should ,think it right to sanction that
measure, he had next to beg of the House to accompany
him farther, until he should state in that supposition
how we should be likely to stand in the year 1827. He
trusted he shotild not be disappointed in the expecta-
tions he had formed; but, in stating them, he did not
requiv of the House to rely fully upon those flattering
prophecies; however, in the - prosperous state of the
country, which he hail every reason to hope would con-,
'time should we remain at. peace, which he was justi-
fied in anticipating, and with the provident care whic 4
Parliament, he knew, would exercise over the public in
terests, -it would not be too much to say that at the end
of the year 1827 we must either find the Revenue ins
creased, or if, unfortunately, the contingency of war
should occur, and which would necessarily derange
those calculations,' we should be in a condition to carry
it on with energy itnd effect. He thought there was a
great advantage in looking beyond the present year in
propositions of this nature, as it prevented rash and pee-
cipitate tesolves. The view he took of the subject was
this : he assumed that in the year 1825 the Custom,
would produce 11,700,0001. the Excise, 25,475;0004
Stamps, 6,800,0001. Post Office, 1,460,0001. Mis-
cellaneous, 730,000/. In short, he might state, that the
whole receipts would be pretty much as in the preseni
year. The receipts of the Customs for 1827.w001d bp
11,7.50,0001. or 200,0001. above the receipts of last year.
'He should now explain how we got those £200,000.
lathe present year he calculated on I.:50,000 on the
reduclion carried into effect of the salaries of officers of
the Customs in Ireland. But there were other items of
'the charge which intercepted the produce of the Cus-
toms in its progress to the Exchequer. 'These were. in
the first instance certain bounties which Parliament had