Star.
London, England, 1830-03-24 00:00:00

HOUSE OF LORDS—Tuts DAY.

Appeals to be heard at ten o'clock.
Dawson •and Mitchell v. the Magistrates of Olasgow.—Appeal
partly heard—to be further heard.:
Made v. Ramsay—Appeal to be heard.
ORDERS Or THE DAY.
Ilamertan's Divorce Bill—evidence to be further considered, and
1111 to be read a second time.—[Lords ordered to be specially suns.
eteroo.
New 'toad Bill—to be read a second time.

HOUSE OF COMMONS—Tins DAY.
ORDERS OF THE DAY.

,41.pply—Committee thereon.
:Is and Means—do.
Galway Franchise Bill—do.
NOTICES OF MOTIONS.
Mr. Hume—to submit a motion to the effect that, with a view of
reducing the expenditure of the country, the office of Receiver-Ge-
neral of Land and Assessed Taxes be abolished, and the duties
transferred to the department of Excise.
Mr. F. Lewis—to apply for leave to bring in a Bill to consolidate
and amend the ActA relating to the pay of the Navy.

THE ENT.ENING STAR.

IA )N DON.

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24.
PRICE OF STOCKS AT FOUR O'CLOCK.
Bank Stock shut Do. Do. Jul.& Jan.
4 per Cent. Red. shut India Bonds 79
5 per Ct. Cons. 921 1 / 1 3 per Cent. 1751,
31 per Ct. 1818, shut I £lOOO Ezeb.Bilis 78 9
34 per Ct. Red. shut £5OO Ditto 78 9
4 per Cent. 1021 I 4 £lOO and .8200 Do. 711 •
4 per Ct. 1826, abut Bank for Acct. sto
I.ong Ann. shot India for Acct. 242
Do. 30 Years, 191 Cons. for Ace. 921
FOREIGN FUNDS, TWO O'CLOCK.
Brazil Bds. 5 pr Ct. 713 Mex. Bds. 5 per Ct.
Ditto Acct 72 I Do. Ace,
Dmish Kis. 3 p. Ct. 754 i Do. 100, 274
Do. Ace. Do.B. 1825, 6 p Ct. 301
Greek Bonds, 5 p Ct. Dn Account 101 1
Do.B. 1825. 40k Sp.Bds. 5 per Ct. 141 I 1
Do. Ace. 401 1 Do. Ace. 21 141 1 1
BRITISH AND FOREIGN SOARES, TWO 4EII.mIK
Slam& PAM WI MAIM
Brazilian Company 90 S to
Brazillat., Imp. (iss..Bs pm.) 35 to 81 82
Do. National 25 10 MEND Awn
Visited Mel, (las. at Al pm.) 40 194 20
Alliance British and Foreign 100 lO 10

It will be seen from the statement of our City Corres-
pondent, that Government has at length decided upon the
reduction of the FOUR PER Cetcrs. The terms upon
which this project is to be carried into effect, are thus
stated :—For every hundred pounds, four per cents. the
present holder is to receive one hundred pounds in the
three and a-half per cents. not liable to be reduced till
1840—that is, for ten years ; or seventy pounds, five per
rent. Stock, for every hundred pounds of new four per
rents. not to be redeemed till 1873—that is, for forty-three
years. The latter arrangement is in fact the proposal of
Mr. BARING, which the Courier lately ridiculed as " in-
compatible with the very nature of a public debt—namely,
that these converted four per cents. shall not be liable to
redemption for three or four generations to come.".—To
this measure of the Government, we are decidedly op-
posed ; not merely as involving a breach of the national
faith, but as depriving the national creditor of the advan-
tages of his fair contract at a time when no effort has been
made, and no disposition indicated, to reduce the enormous
incomes which pensioners and sinecurists, who have never
contributed to the necessities of the State, drain from the
puljlic purse. We have not leisure this day to enter
more fully into the subject ; but we shall resume its con-
sideration to-morrow ; and in the mean time, we cannot
do better than refer to the exposure of some facts con-
nected with the Pension List, which appeared in the
Letter of our Correspondent PoLt.to, in the STAR of
Monday evening. —Before the public creditor was thus
subjected to an invidious 'spoliation, the Government
should, at least, have had the justice to have adopted a
system of reduction which would come recommended to
the Country by its impartiality and fairness.—ln the
words of the Marquis of BL AN DFORD, upon Mr. E. I)s.-
v utt PORT'S motion, " We should abolish all sinecures,
and cut down pay, salaries, and pensions, to the lowest
uossible level."

French Papers of Monday and Tuesday, have been
received this day by express. The Constitutionnel men-
tions a report, that four Ministers, Messrs. CHABROL,
D'HAUSSEZ, COURVOISIZR, and MONTREL, had re-
signed ; in which case it was presumed, M. DUDON
would have the portfolio of Finance; M. GUERNON
RAN V ILLE, the Ministry of Justice; M. FERDINAND
• BEILTHIER, the Marine; M. BERRTER, Public In-
struction ; and M. PET RON NET, the Interior. It adds,
that thirty new Prefects will be taken on the extreme
right.—A letter from Malta, dated March 3, says, that
admiral MA LcoLad was in that port with a part of the
British squadron, and that five Russian line-of-battits
• five Russian frigates, with three Russian Admi-
rals, rere also in the port on their way to the Baltic.
It is certain that M. Boy amoitT Will command the active
operations against Algiers.—The Quotidienne -says,
" Since the year 1814, no levee has been so
attended -

to adopt." A numerous meeting of the Paris Electors was
held on the same day, when it was resolved that a grind
dinner should be given to the Deputies of the Department
of the Seine, and that a medal should be struck in honour
of the 221 Members who voted fur the address to the
KING, and proclaimed the necessity of concord amongst
the three branches of the State. In the event of the
Director of the Mint refusing to execute this medal, it
will be struck at Brussels.

The debate to which Mr. Enw Ann DAVENPORT'S
motion on " the State of the Country," gave rise, ter-
minated last night, after a discussion that, in point of
duration, rather than in the promise of any beneficial or
satisfactory result, is almost without a precedent in the
recent annals of Parliament. However disappointed,
humbled, or mortified we might feel, under other circum-
stances, by the overwhelming majority—of something

Tess than three to one—which has thus, for a season,

defeated the just and rational expectation of the people ;
yet there is one circumstance, to which we shall presently

advert, which, in itself, is more than sufficient to recon-

cile us to a decision which nothing but the manly per-
severance of the proposer and advocates of the motion
could have averted, or even rendered desirable. Before

we enter further into the consideration of this mo-

mentous subject, we must claim the attention of our
readers to the peculiar nature of Mr. DAVENPORT'S
proposition, which to us appears so palpable and direct in
its object, and so simple and uninvolved in the develop-

ment of its purposes, that—if we had not marked the
subtlety and artifice with which its fair-spoken opponents
secured its defeat, by prolonging the debate till it be-

came " as tedious as a twice-told tale," and was ren-

tiered formidable as an impediment to all other public

business,—we should scarcely have supposed it possible,
that so intelligible and straightforward a motion could
have engrossed the attention of a grave Legislative As-
sembly for four hours, instead of FOUR NIG H TS. Taken
abstractedly, then, Mr. DA VEN PORT'S proposition was to
this effect : that " All the Petitions sent to that House by
various parties, and complaining of distress, be referred to
a Committee of the whole House, with a view of inquiring
into that distress, and its causes ; and to report the re-
medies." Such a resolution, even if adopted to its fullest
extent, imposed no responsibility upon Parliament, to
which they were not previously bound by the provisions
of the Constitution ;—it exacted no pledge fort the
members of any party as to the course which might ulti-
mately be deemed expedient ; —it neither suggested, nor
implied, any reprehension of the measures of adminis•
tration ; it betrayed no " want of confidence in the in-
tentions of Government;"—it compromised no principle
of legislation involved no prerogative of the state ;
and it held out no unwarrantable hope to the country.

" The question at issue was"—as Mr. DAVEN PORT ob-
served, last night, in his reply, " whether the petitions
complaining of the unexampled distress of the country, pe-
titions coming from every large town, and from most of
the counties in England, were to be listened to or not ?"
It did indeed suggest, and very properly, that such pe-
titions—to which the calamitous condition of the people
has at this moment attached an interest and an

importance that render all other topics of parlia-
mentary discussion comparatively trifling—should be
received in a manner more consonant to the wishes,
and more calculated to alleviate the wants, of the
petitioners, than the ordinary routine which has hitherto
prevailed. It prayed—rather than insisted—that such
petitions should no longer be laid upon the table of the
Honourable House, as a mere matter of form ; but
should be taken into the calm, deliberate, and mature
consideration of a Committee composed—not of a few
members capriciously chosen from the many—but of the
whole House. It called upon the Representatives of the
people to manifest, by something more than vain pro.
fusions, their sympathy in the sufferings of their consti-
tuents ; their regard for the welfare and happiness of the
country. It demanded—not the performance of any in.
compatible duty, or the unjustifiable intervention of the
third estate of the realm, in the redress of public
grievances—but an inquiry into the causes of that dis-
tress which now almost desolates the land, and the con-
templation of such remedies as an investigation so con-
ducted might suggest, and as the wisdom, prudence, and,
justice of Parliament might sanction, and recommend to
the adoption of His Majesty's Government. • And yet
such a proposition—which, as we have before remarked,
is at once palpable and direct in its object, and simple
and uninvolved in the development of its purposes ; and
which must appear to all men, unobjectionably tem-
perate in its language and precise in its terms—has
been rejected by the votes of Two HUN DRED and
TWENTY-71V E. Members of the House of Commons—
opposed to RIGIITY-ERV EN ! It will be in vain for those
who have thus consigned the people to the hopeless en-
durance of their miseries for an indefinite period, to ex-
tenuate their insensibility to those miseries, by urging
the objections which presented themselves to the success
of such a measure, in the disparity of sentiment, or the
variance of those views of political economy by which its
advocates professed to be influenced. No discrepance of
opinion in the supporters of a motion for obtaining an
inquiry into the state of the nation, can justify its rejec-
tion. Every member by whom it was supported may
entertain a different notion upon the means of remedying
the evil ; but there cannot be two unbiassed opinions
upon the necessity which calls for that inquiry. In a
Committee of the whole House, the prejudices of indivi-
duals might perhaps occasion a more protracted consi-
deration of the question; but they could neither affect
the general conduct of the Committee, or obstruct the
attainment of objects so desirable, as the impartial in-
vestigation of the causes of the present distress ; the con-
' remedies as might be applicable to the
country ; and the adoption of

we should find that solace in the close of Mr. DAV C -
PO Wee reply ; when, finding his endeavours obstructed,
rather than advanced, by the cavilling objections of those
upon whose unqualified support lie had a right to calcu-
late, he determined to " withdraw" that part of his
proposition " which appeared most objectionable to the
Honourable Members opposed to it,"—and consented to
an amendment for a Select Committee. Nothing—we
repeat it—but the manly perseverance of the proposer and
advocates of such a motion, could either have averted its
defeat, or rendered its success desirable. Half measures
will no longer avail ; and Select Committees seem, not
only to have lost all hold upon popular estimation, but to
be altogether inadequate to the discharge of duties so
important and so momentous as the country now requires
at the hands of her Legislators. And when we find the
individual to whom the people were indebted for so pa-
triotic an effort, abandoning the proposition upon whi. h
their expectations rested, we are bound to conclude that
the object for which he so nobly contended, was either
utterly unattainable, or even if conceded, would yet be so
clogged with difficulties, or so frittered away by the inju-
rious interference of over-officious friends—the reck-

lessness of lukewarm partisans —or the mischievous
meddhng of Ministerial Marplots, that it would fall far
short of the salutary end which he had proposed to his
labours; or would eventually prove like the " paltering
in a double sense" of those '•juggling fiends"

" Who keep the word of promise to the ear,
But break it to the hope."

We have already devoted so much space to the debates
of last night, and to the comments which the most im-
portant feature of Parliamentary discussion—the state of
the nation—called for ; that wo must for a day or two
defer our notice of the speeches delivered by Lord A BEn-
DF.EN and His Grace the Dcaa, in reply to the resolu-
tions proposed by the Marquis of CLAY RICA RDE, and
in defence of that conduct towards the wretched Portu-
guese emigrants, which every body else, we believe, holds
to be utterly indefensible. In resuming this subject, we
shall also have occasion to notice the official publication
entitled " E.rpose des Druits de sa MajesN Tres Fidele
Dona Maria 11. et de la Question Portugais", which
must be regarded as the manifesto of the Regency
appointed by DON P D go, and acting in the name of the
young QUEEN.

THE NEW FOUR PER CENTS.

Cupy froii- the Bank.

A new Stock is to be created,bearing an interest at the rate of
31. 10s. per annum, the interest to be payable on the sth Jan. and
sth July in each year, and not to be paid off until the sth Jan.
1840. All holden of new Four per Cents. who shall not signify
their dissent, shall have for every lOW. new Four per Cent. An.
nuides, 1001. in the new Three and a Half per Cent. Annuities.—
The first dividend of the new Three and a Half per Cents. to be
payable on the sth day of Jan. 1831, the said new Three and a Half
per Cent. Stock not to be liable to redemption until the sth day of
Jan. 1840. Books to be opened at the Bank of England from
Monday, April 5, and Saturday, April U, both days inclu.
sive, for receiving signatures of persons dissenting.
Persona not signifying their dissent within this period to
be deemed to have wanted, unless they shall have been out
of the United Kingdom for the whole of such period, in which
case they shall be permitted to express such dissent at any
time before the Ist of Jan. 1831. Any persons who may be in any
other part of the world except Europe to be permitted to express
their dissent at any time before the let day of April, 1831. Persons
not signifying their dissent within the period respectively specified,
to have the option during one month from the day limited for the
signification of their dissent, to subscribe to a new 5 per cent. Stock
not redeemable until the sth day of Jan. 187$, receiving seventy
pounds of such Stock for every hundred of new 4 per cent. held by
them. Persons signifying their dissent to be paid off in such order
as parliament may direct.

CITY, Tu.

I. Vlt 0.0 LOC I . •