The Statesman.
London, England, 1823-02-11 00:00:00

1' tiEsTATEsMAN

House to make n further and much
•
burden of Taxation, and particularly to repeal the House
and Window Tax, and the duties on Malt and on other ar-
ticles of the first necessity. greater reduetion the
" Your Petitioners entertain the most decided opinion
that their present distress would never have been known, if
the representation of the people had been consonant to the
tong settled laws and Constitution of their country 111,1
understand that a niajo7ity of the members of your Honour-
this House is returned. by a small number of individuals,
Who have appropriated to themselves and to their own pri-
vate benefit, those rights which belong to the people at large.
This unwarrantable conversion of a great public trust into
a private property, has produced an endless train of abuses
iu every department of the Government, both at home and
abroad, every where apparent in the vicious system or
boundless profusion. maintained for the sake of the Increase
of pistroonge ; for this object, the public service and the
public servants are paid at the dearest, and not at the cheap-
est rate, for which those services could be performed and
fairly remenerateA, and the interest of those individuals who
have usurped the property of returning Members to Sit in
your Honourable lionise, or of those who exercie the trade
of procuriag the return of Members, is preferred above
every other consideration.
" ln the Army a host of Generals and Field Officers,
utterly disproportioned to the effective establishment, and
unknown in any other country, and a nunerous ex?ensi% e
Staff, are pelt) out of the produce of the Taxzs levird upon
your humble and suffering Petitioners, for the benefit of the
Members of your Honourable House,and of the other House
of Parliament, or of their near connexions.

•
"In the Coionies a legion of Governors and Officers, en-
joying splendid appointments, and a geueral studied sy,tem
of extravagance is maintained, and defrayed in great part
from the produce of the Taxes levied upon your humble
a*d suffering Petitioners, for the sake of patronage, and for
Me benefit of the Members of your Honourable House, cud
of the other House of Parliament, and of their near con-

nellons.
" In the Civil List, under the class of Foreign Ministers,
most extravagant and unnecessary expense in the ordi-
nary and extraordinary charges, in the appointments of
Ambassadors and Ministers. with very largely increased
salaries and outfits, is incurred and defrayed from the
produce of the Taxes levied upon your humble and suffering
Petitioners, for the sake of the increase of patronage, for
the benefit of the Members of your Honourable House, and
of the other House of Parliameut, and of their near con-
nexions.

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In the revenue a large addition is made to the pnblie
burdens pressing so severely npon your humble and suffer-
ing Petitioners, in c.ousequenee of the expen,ive mode of
collection and management eirp.oyed in that department.
which alone absorbs the sum of four millions ; ■ misap-
plication of the national resources retained for the sake
of patronage fur the benefit of the near connexions nod
supporters of the Members of your Honourable House.
" Your Petitioners humbly represent to your Honour-
able House, that the pressing difficulties of the country
urgently require that all these numerous abuses in the ad-
ministration ofpublic affairs, so injurious to your humble
Petitioners, but so advantageous to the Members of
your Honourable House, he speedily and thoroughly
reformed, and the expenses of the state reduced to the stale
of former and happier times.

•' In a Parliament fully and fairly representing the people,
your humble petitioners place their on.y hopes of salvation
from impending rain ; they believe that an Assembly com-
posed of the real Representatives of the nation will alone
be able to carry into effect a general system of severe eco-
nomy, and an unsparing retrenchment of the Civil and Mili-
tary Establishments, and of lit Oltices, Places, Sinecures,
and Pensions, not merited by public services.

" Your petitioners are confident that a reformed House of
Commons will have the virtue and ability to apply the whole
of the national resources to the relief of the public necessi-
ties, and rather than consummate the ruin of the Landed In-
terest, to de►ive resources from the sale of the Crown Lands.
snd from the messes of test large mass of public properly
at present employed in supporting the enormous Church
Establishment in England and Ireland, which nay be re-
duced to a more moderate scale, without detriment to true
religion or mo►ality.
Your bumble petitioners suffering under the Intolerable
weight of taxation in.pose.i upon them by the Acts of an
unreformed Parliament, hat a reformed House of
Commons will be able to apply the best remedy for the past,
and at the same time to afford the only security for the
future: they therefore most humbly pray your Honourable
House to establialLett effectual Reform.

nobbett's Addition to the Petition.)

"Without which your petitioners can see no hope of that
equitable adjustment with regard to the Public Debt. end
with regard to all contratts between man and man, which Is
absolutely necessary to the defence of the country against
foreign foes, and to the restoration of Internal tranquillity."
" And your petitioners will ever pray."
The Petition was received with repeated cheers.
Mr. Leacu seconded the motion. After the able and
eloquent speech of the Noble Lord, it would appear
unnecessary to add a single word upon the question of
Reform. Bet when be looked to the distresses by which
they were surrounded—when he considered that they
had been petitioning year after year without any atten-
tion being shown to their wants or wishes, he, as a
practical farmer, was anxious to point out how things
were at present, and how II y were likely to be, unless
some speedy. sad permanent relief was applied. lie
had been for some time farming 500 acres of land, and
for the benefit of landlords and tenants, and particularly
those landlords who were not practical farmers, !.e
wished to state the result of last year's experience. By
tilt most accurate account he found, that at the end of
the year, without reckoning one farthing of rent, the
expenses were as nearly as possible equal to the produce
of the farm. If this was so in his case, it was, he was
sure, the case generally with all the farmers in the
kingdom. This being so, the landowners who received
rents received them out of the capitals of the tenants.
—(Hear, hear.) It was said in the House of Commons
that the landed interest was recovering, that rents were
reduced to the standard of 179'2, and it was hoped that
every thing would go on well. Were their rents reduced
to the standard of 1792 ?—(No, no !) Theo, if not,
they must go on paying their rents out of their capitals,
and even it the rents were reduced to the standard of
1792, it would afford them no relief, unless they were
better farmers than he was. If this were not done, the
landlords would begin to find a deficiency, and then
they would be induced to join hand in hand with the
Reformers in pointing out excessive taxation as the
cause of their distresses. He had forgotten to state,
that his farm, though unproductive, was free from that
odious and objectionable tax, called tithes. He used
these terms without meaning any offence to the clergy ;
he was most anxious to see them amply provided for,
bat in a fairer or more equitable manner. The Hon.
Gentleman, after alluding to the origin of tithes, ad
vetted to Blackstone's description of the British Con-
stitution, in support of his argument as to what the
House of Commons ought to be. That Learned Judge
and ConstttntionalLawyer,sfter describing the functions
of the various branches of the Constitution, proceeded
as follows :

Thus every branch of our civil polity supports and
is supported, regulates and is regulated by the rest; fur
the two Houses naturally drawing in two directions of
opposite interest, and the prerogative in another still
different from them both, they mutually keep each other
from exceeding their proper limits; while the whole is
prevented 'from separation, and artificially connected
together by the mixed nature of the Crown, which is a
part of the Legislative, and the sole Executive Magis-
trate. Like three distinct powers in mechanics, they
jointly imnpet the machine of (lovernment in a direction
' different from what either, acting by itself, would have
done; but at the same dine in a direction partaking of
each, and formed out of all ; a direction which consti-
tute: the true line of the liberty and happiness of the
comnanity."—V al I, page 15:2.

Tits stir wed whst the COI ititUtil4 OU4iii but
where were the difietept pulling. to he seen in our Con-
stittition ? Did one House pull one wiry add the otbog
another; and the Crown a third? No: they all went
quietly together in support of the Government. In the
same writer be found the following description of the
House of Commons :
" The Commons consist of all such men of property,dsin,
ethe e
ry kingdomone which teh
as have
frin
so t a seatsvoic
voice
in i
nt the
rtHoweiaui,
Parliament,
either 4r
personally or by his Representatives. In a free state
every taan.sbo is supposed a free agent. ought to be in
some measure his own Governor ; and therefore a branch
at least of the legislative power should reside in the
whole body of the people. And this power. when th.e
territories of the State are small, aid its citizens easily
known. should be exercised by the people le their aggsru•
gate or collective capacity, as was wisely °visited in
the petty Republics of Greece, and the first rudiments of
the Roman State."—Pages lsd and 9.
Here they saw what the House of Commons alight id
he, but he would ask whether it was 113 at present ? it,,i
the body of the people any more controul over tha Hueso
of Commons than the French people had ? The whole
power and controul of Parliament were in the bands of
the Government. Mt, Blackstone. speaking of the great
power of Parliament, sage—
" So that it is a metric most essential to the liberties
of this It; vtlons that such Members he delegated to this
important trust, as are most eminent for their probity,
their fortitude and their knowledge: for it was a known
apothegm of the great Lord Treasurer Burleish, that
• England could never be ruined bat by a Parliament;'
and as Sir Mat. Hale observes. this being the highest
and greaten Court, over which none other can have
jurisdiction in the kingdom, if by any means a misgo-
vernment should any way fall upon it, the subjects (dais
kingdom are left without all manner of remedy. To the
same purpose the President Montestprieu, though I trust
too hastily presages that as Rome, Spaeth, and Carthage,
have lost their liberty and perished—so the Constitu-
tion of England will in time lose its liberty, will perish
—it will perish whenever the legislative Power shall
become more -orrupt than the Esreutivs."—Ptge
rise lion, lien leinan, after some further observatium,
which want of tpace prevents us from* inserting, con•
Bladed by giving his cordial support to the Petition.
The HIGH SHERIFF was about to put the roes:ion,
when