As to the window tax, this was also chiefly paid by the great cities and towns, and fell with lighter pressure upon the agricultural classes, who would be much more relieved by the removal of many other taxes. But the real matter for consideration was, whether any taxes whatever could, in the present state of the Sinking Fund, be remitted, without great injury to the public credit. He was of opinion that they could not; and therefore he should oppose that part of the motion. The hon. member had stated, that the charges for collecting the revenue were greater now than they had been in 1792, and that they might be reduced 2 per cent. These were both great errors; for it appeared, upon a comparison of the ordinary revenues of Great Britain, ex

considerably below that amount. It appeared to him that the diminution of the unfunded debt, between 5th January 1820, and 5th January 1821, amounted to very nearly 8,000,000l. while the Sink ing Fund for the present year was 17,000,000l. making together 25,000,000l. This was in diminution of the debt; but, on the other hand, what had been added to it? The chancellor of the exchequer took a loan of 17,000,000. and funded exchequer bills to the amount of 7,000,000l. so that an amount of stock equal to 24,000,000l. was added to the debt. Besides this there was a deficiency of the Consolidated Fund to the amount of 400,000l. Deducting therefore 24,400,000 debt, incurred from the 25,000,000l. debt reduced, 600,000l. was the only real decrease; and he could call nothing a Sink-clusive of the Post-office, and small ing Fund, but what operated a reduction of the national debt.

Mr. Lushington said, that the hon. gentleman had totally mistaken the substance of the propositions before the House, if he imagined that they did not tend to reduce the Sinking Fund. The taxes proposed to be repealed formed part of that income, the surplus of which above the expenditure constituted the Sinking Fund: and therefore the reduction of those taxes must, to that extent, diminish the Sinking Fund; and if the hon. member thought that fund a delusion now, his concurrence in the motions before the House would tend to make it more so. It would, in fact, reduce the four millions which the chancellor of the exchequer anticipated as the Sinking Fund to two millions, that being one half of the duties upon inhabited houses and windows which the hon. mover proposed to repeal. The first part of the hon. member's proposition for reducing the expenditure of 1821, to the amount limited by the finance committee in 1817, was quite unnecessary for the reasons so clearly detailed by his right hon. friends below him; and he should have no difficulty in shewing to the House, that if it were expedient to remit or reduce any of the taxes, the selection made by the hon. mover, was the worst that could have been chosen in the present state of agricultural distress; for the duty on inhabited houses was not paid at all by the farmer occupying as a tenant; and if he occupied as an owner, he was likewise exempt under the acts imposing that duty, unless the annual value and rent of his house exceeded 104.

branches in the year 1820, with those of 1792, that the rate per cent. now was 5. 19s.; whereas in 1792 it had been 6l. 5s. ; a result attained only by constant endeavours to diminish the expenditure. This would, no doubt, be satisfactory to the House and to the country, considering that our system of rewarding the public servants since 1792 had been entirely changed, greatly to the increase of the charges of collection, but certainly to the benefit of the merchant, and the greater security of the revenue. Still, however, he had no hesitation in assuring the hon. mover that if he could really point out any practicable reduction, not dangerous to the security of the revenue, and not otherwise injurious to the public service, it would be most willingly received, and with every desire that it might be found fit to adopt.

Mr. Ellice said, that if he had come into the House with the determination of supporting the resolutions on the table, every thing which had passed in debate, and more particularly the speech of the right hon. the surveyor of Woods and Forests,-who admitted it was possible, and actually intended by government, to reduce the army and navy estimates to the amount recommended by the report of 1817-confirmed him in that opinion:

but when he was told, that in consequence of such intention, these resolutions were unnecessary, he would ask, why the reductions now proposed had not been made before the sixth year of peace?→→ or whether they could trust to the good faith of ministers to retrench, after the experience they had of their profusion

and extravagance? We are now told in what course the right hon. gentleman answer to our general propositions-point would pursue? The last time the Sinking out the practical and precise mode of Fund had been brought under the consiretrenchment; he would refer the right deration of the House, new taxes had hon. gentleman to the order-book, where been most unjustly imposed, to raise the he would find a notice on an early day, amount at which it was to be in future for abolishing the county receiverships; kept-at 5 millions. Notwithstanding would they engage to support that reform? these new taxes, it was now acknowIt might be said, and possibly with some ledged the surplus was only 1 million; truth, that all the retrenchments which still the delusion had been practised, of could be made, looking to the amount of borrowing the difference, so as to apply pensions to the army and navy for their the whole 5 millions to the redemption of services during the late war, would be no stock; was this practice to continue? very effectual relief to the distresses of Were we, always supposing the calculathe country; but if he admitted this, and tions of the right hon. gentleman to be that the enormous debt left by the useless correct, with respect to the 24 millions and ruinous wars in which we had engaged, this year, to renew the other 2 on exwas the great evil under which the nation chequer bills; to purchase stock at 74, laboured-still that was no reply to the that we might have the satisfaction heredemands of the people that any prac- after of funding these same exchequer ticable reduction should be made; and bills at 64 or 65? Why not at once get more particularly, looking, as they did, rid of this useless and extensive machinery, with extreme jealousy to the influence in by cancelling the debt which had been that House, which the present adminis- redeemed-reducing taxes to the amount tration, and indeed all who had preceded proposed-and applying any surplus which them, had been enabled to promote, by might be received in the Exchequer, to extravagant grants of money, and sinecure the liquidation of what was called the places, in the different branches of the arrears of the Consolidated Fund, a debt of collection of the revenue. He should near 9 millions? As the matter now vote for the second resolution of his hon. stood, the creditor might, one of these friend, because he thought the next relief days, be disappointed in the receipt of his to retrenchment in expense was the re- dividends, by any caprice of the bank, duction of taxation-and because he con- or any false alarm, which might induce sidered, under the present circumstances them to hesitate advancing the amount of the country, it was both unwise and at the end of a quarter: was it right this unnecessary to drain the pockets of the should continue on the present unsatisfac people, for the purpose of keeping up a tory footing? The surplus revenue, if sinking fund, to save the value of funded there should be any, might with great property. Then, as to this famous Sink- propriety be applied to this fund till it ing Fund-his hon. friend (the member was relieved, and, by that time, we for Portarlington) had stated it at should have arrived at some more ex600,000/-the right hon. gentleman the perience of the effects of the alteration in chancellor of the exchequer, at 14 million. our currency, which had only as yet been He was so sick of looking into the con- partially felt, when a more satisfactory fused, and intentionally complicated ac- arrangement might be considered-with counts of the revenue, that he could not reference to our means for the extinctell which of these statements was correct; tion of debt. At present, and more parbut admitting-which was a wide ad- ticularly looking to the agricultural petimission, looking to the general result of tions on the table, it was quite sufficient his statements-that the right hon. gen- to undertake the payment of the dividends. tleman was right, we might then calcu- As to the third resolution of his hon. late if the revenue kept up, also a wide friend, pointing out the house and admission, that beyond the excess of last window tax, as the particular taxes to be year, if all we heard on the subject of repealed, that might not be pressed. He reduction was true, there was to be a would be perfectly satisfied to leave the saving of a million, which would make the selection of such taxes, as it would be Sinking Fund be this year 2 millions. If most proper to repeal, to the gentlemen this was the case, he would then vote for opposite, if they would consent to the taking off 2 millions of taxes, and if this two first resolutions; but he confessed was not done, he should be glad to hear their opposition to this particular tax,

Hutchinson, hon. C.
James, W.
Johnson, col.
Lennard, T. B.
Lambton, J. G.
Lloyd, J. M.
Lushington, S.
Lockhart, J. J.
Maberly, J.
Macdonald, J.
Martin, John
Monck, J. B.
Marjoribanks, S.
Neville, hon. R.
Newport, sir J.
Nugent, lord
Ord, W.
Ossulston, lord
Palmer, C. F.
Parnell, sir H.
Price, R.
Pym, Francis
Rice, T. S.
Ramsden, J. C.
Ramsay, sir A.
Ricardo, D.
Ridley, sir M. W.
Robarts, A.
Robinson, sir G.
Rowley, sir W.
Rumbold, C.
Russell, lord W.
Smith, John

duct, it had been satisfactorily proved that he had not been guilty of any oppression. He believed there were no grounds for the allegations in the petition, and therefore he should oppose its being received.

Mr. Serjeant Onslow declared, that after what the House had heard from local magistrates with respect to the conduct and character of the gaoler, the statement of the petitioner must be deemed a foul and infamous calumny, which ought not to be circulated with the sanction of that House.

which this man was exposed. This man's
letters were broken open from whomso-
ever they happened to come. Now he
did not know under what authority so
odious a practice as the opening of priso-
ners' letters was supported. It might be,
perhaps, by the permission or approba-
tion of a few justices; but such a princi-
ple it would be odious even in the legis-
lature to entertain; and if the legislature,
which, as he conceived, could alone as-
sume such a power, had not deemed it
proper ever to do so, he thought it cer-
tainly was not competent for a bench of
justices to take upon themselves the au-
thority. Neither was he aware of any
grounds which could justify the harshness
which the individual had been treated
with, in the particulars set forth in his peed knave and tyrant.
tition, excepting, indeed, the fact that these
restraints had been imposed on prisoners
by the same magistrates who had distin-
guished themselves at Manchester, after
the bloody transactions of the 16th of Au-
gust. The petition required the strictest
investigation.

Sir R. Wilson observed, that testimonies equally high, had been borne in that House to the conduct and character of governor Aris, who had nevertheless been indisputably proved to be a confirm

Mr. Hobhouse said, that he knew something of this Mr. Higgins, the gaoler; for some time ago, a petition was transmitted to him, to present to that House, from several prisoners, who complained of his misconduct; but after he had received this petition, some of the parties wrote to him Mr. Hornby, as one of the visiting ma- not to present it, because the county magistrates, felt himself called upon to say a gistrates had rectified the matters comfew words upon the subject of this peti- plained of. From this circumstance it aption. The rules complained of by the pe-peared, that this gaoler was not deserving titioner were sanctioned by two of the of the unqualified panegyric which he had judges. He himself was one of those who received. disapproved of the rule excluding all Mr. Lockhart deprecated the doctrine newspapers from the prisoners; but he that that House, by receiving a comwas opposed by the majority of the ma-plaint of oppression from any petitioner, gistrates, whose decision was approved by that humane and constitutional judge, Mr. Justice Bailey. As to the petitioner's complaint about the rule with regard to work, reform being one of the main objects of imprisonment, it was better to employ prisoners in some branch of industry, than to allow them to spend their time in listless inactivity; and yet no prisoners were compelled to work in this prison but such as received the county allowance. The restrictions as to communication by letter he thought necessary for the pur-ceive such statements. pose of securing the safe custody of prisoners. With regard to the character of the gaoler of this prison, he could declare from personal knowledge that he was a most humane man, whose removal would be a serious grievance to the prisoners themselves.

The petition having been read, Lord Stanley said, that this was the third time the conduct of the gaoler had been a matter of complaint to this House; and after an investigation into his con

made itself a party to that complaint, or to the charges which it imputed. From the admission of such doctrine, another proposition would naturally follow-that if the House received the complaint, and instituted an inquiry upon the subject, the case would be referred to a partial tribunal. He was an advocate for the reception of any petition couched in decorous language. It was the undoubted right of the subject to state his grievances to that House, and the duty of that House to re

Mr. Wynn was quite astonished at the doctrine which had been held on this subject. There was a proper tribunal, before which all matters with respect to gaols might be brought, namely, the visiting magistrates. The House therefore ought not to interfere in the present case.

Mr. Bernal contended, that after an ineffectual appeal to the proper tribunal, it was competent to any subject to present a petition. The noble lord who opposed the motion, had not attempted to contra