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as L. 260,812 of annual charge for long annuities and land tax redeemed had been reduced, the reduction of the annual charge of the funded debt ought to have been to the amount of L.452,929 in 1821; whereas the charge had been increased instead of decreased. By the management of the Right Honourable Gentleman, who borrowed money at, we will say, 60 per cent. to give to the commissioners for the reduction of the national debt, who after wards bought at 70 or 80 per cent., the whole of this four millions and odd had been lost to the country. Such was the consequence of the complicated and circuitous process attendant on the Sinking Fund; a consequence which would have been avoided, had the simple surplus of the revenue been directly applied to the liquidation of the debt. By the account of interest paid in each year to the public for the funded and unfunded debt of the United Kingdom, and for the charge of management at the Bank of England for the four years ending the 5th January 1821 (exclusive of the Sinking Fund), it appeared that the total charge for the year 1817 was

L. 31,266,601; for the year 1818, L. 31,351,751; for the year 1819, L. 30,792,025; and for the year 1820, L.31,252,612. Taking the average of the three years 1817, 1818, and 1819, viz. L. 31,136,792, it appeared that last year the public creditor received L. 15,820 more than the amount of that average. How different would the case have been if we had not had the circuitous operation of the Sinking Fund. By Mr Haworth's account from the Exchequer Office, (and here he begged to observe that the accounts from the Exchequer were wholly free from error, as far as he had been able to observe, while those from the Treasury could, in no single instance, be accurately balanced), it appeared that the charge for the funded debt for the year ending the 5th of January 1822 would be L. 30,180, 213; and that, taking by estimate the interest on the Exchequer bills (L. 34,728,691) stated as outstanding on the 5th of January 1821, in the same proportion as L. 1,849,219 was charged in 1820, for the interest on L. 42,694,882 of outstanding bills, on the 5th of January 1820, the amount of in

STATEMENT of the ITEMS of REDUCTION in the Annual Charge on the National Debt, independent of the Sinking Fund, in the four years 1817 to 1820, both inclusive-viz. In 1817. By Annuities expired............................................ L.1,229 10 9 Dividend on Loan of 1798 paid off, the money for which is charged in the Miscellaneous Expenditure Dividend on Capital cancelled by redemption of Land Tax......

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2,091 9 5

2,947 3 4

L.6,268 3 6 3,385 15 11

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243,157 15 6 4,026 14 114

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Total in the 4 years (exclusive of what Annuities may have expired out of those created by act of 48 Geo. III.).......

L. 260,811 14 4

terest for the year ended 5th January 1822, would be L. 1,300,000; making a total charge for funded and unfunded debt of L. 31,480,213, instead of (after deducting the L.452,929 of dividends, redeemed and expired) only L. 30,812,672 as it ought to have been, if there had been no Sinking Fund. He was perfectly convinced, however, that it would be found, that a much larger amount of Exchequer bills was out than had been stated to the House by the Right Honourable the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that a perpetual charge of a much larger amount would be thereby incurred. Under all the circumstances, therefore, he put it to the House, whether it would not have been wise to listen to the Honourable Baronet's recommendation to take time to consider the address, to pause before they congratulated his Majesty on the condition of the country. The existing system of finance was temporising, and must be ruinous, and, as far as the last four years went, his statements proved it. The Honourable Member then proceeded to point out the necessity of a reduction of expenditure, and to make some remarks on the existing distress of the country, and on what he conceived the extravagant salaries enjoyed by several functionaries in the Ordnance Department, after which he concluded by moving the following amendment :

"That while we return his Majesty our most grateful acknowledgments for the various reductions which have been made in the naval and military establishments during the last year, by which some diminution of expense may be effected, yet we should ill discharge the duty we owe to his Majesty, if we did not direct his most serious attention to

the present condition of his faithful people:

"That we feel it our duty to represent to his Majesty, that the distresses, proved to exist,before a Committee of this House, instituted for the special purpose in the last session of Parliament have considerably increased; and that the owners and occupiers of land throughout a great part of the kingdom, and with them the tradesmen and artisans usually dependent on them for employment, are labouring under unexampled dif ficulties:

"That we cannot but express most respectfully to his Majesty our opinion, that an excessive taxation, disproportionate to the reduced value of all property, is a principal cause of those distresses; and humbly to entreat that he will be graciously pleased immediately to direct such reductions in every branch of our expenditure, from the highest to the lowest department, as shall enable us forthwith to relieve his Majesty's faithful people from a large portion of that burden of taxation, which, in their present impoverished condition, presses so heavily upon all classes.”

The calculations and statements of Mr Hume were impugned in general terms by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr Robinson, the Marquis of Londonderry, and Mr Huskisson; but, as it was impossible, on an occasion like the present, when the question before the House was an address in answer to the very moderate and satisfactory speech from the throne, to follow the Honourable Member into the wide field into which he had entered, and to be prepared to go fully into such a multiplicity of statements and details, we deem it unnecessary to present any abstract of the observations made from the Treasury. This is

the less necessary, as the views of the Honourable Member for Aber deen met with only a very partial and qualified support from several of the honourable gentlemen on his own side of the House; Mr Ricardo, for example, declaring, that though he agreed with every thing that had fallen from his honourable friend, the member for Aberdeen, in favour of economy and retrenchment, he could not vote in favour of his amendment, as he differed widely from his honourable friend as to the causes of the existing agricultural distress, which he said was excessive taxation; whereas the real cause, it could not be denied, was the low price of agricultural produce; for that taxation should be the cause of low prices was so absurd, and so inconsistent with every principle of political economy, that he could not assent for a moment to the doctrine.

At length, after a protracted dis. cussion of a general and somewhat indefinite character, the House divided on the amendment, when it was negatived by a majority of 171 to 89, and the original address then put and agreed to.

We have extended our account of these preliminary discussions, because we were desirous to exhibit as clear and distinct an outline as possible of those important interests, which were to occupy the attention of Parliament during the present Session. Ministers, it is obvious, were placed in a situation of no ordinary difficulty. The unexampled depres sion of the agricultural interest had united the Country Gentlemen with the Whigs, and, in some instances, with the Radical Reformers, in a loud call at once for relief, and for the strictest economy in all the departments of the state. Numerous public meetings had been held, and

though each had its own little nostrum to propose for bringing back the blessing of high prices, the burden of the general song was retrenchment. Ireland, too, was in a state ap⚫ proaching actual insurrection. The Government were therefore placed in a situation of great perplexity; and it was probably with a view to strengthen their hands, by availing themselves of the talents and experience of several eminent individuals, that they were induced to form a union with the Grenvilles, a party which, though frequently found in the ranks of opposition, possessed few opinions or principles in common with the Whigs. In consequence of this accession, Marquis Wellesley, whose Indian Administration had been the subject of great and deserved encomiums, was, towards the close of the preceding year, sent over to Ireland as Viceroy; the Marquis of Buckingham was raised to the dignity of Duke; Mr C. Wynn was placed at the head of the Board of Control; and Mr H. Wynn was appointed Envoy to the Swiss Cantons, with salary and allowances equal to about L.4000 a-year. certainly not to be expected that men should serve their country for nothing; and the Grenvilles, who have acquired some celebrity for their skill in personal negociations, seem to be of opinion that such a sacrifice would be a work, not of patriotism, but of supererogation. On the score of public principle, there was evidently little or nothing to render this coalition a subject of wonder, or to justify the loud and senseless clamour which it excited among the Whigs. It is absurd to maintain, that they who have at one time voted against Ministers, and strenuously opposed the system of policy pursued by the Government, should, to preserve an apparent con

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sistency, pertinaciously adhere to the same course, in spite of every motive and consideration which might lead to a change in their conduct. The Grenvilles had always viewed with peculiar jealousy and alarm the growth of popular influence; and when they opposed Ministers, it was not so much on questions involving any broad principle of political faith, as on the expediency of particular measures: in a word, as democratic ascendancy had been the object of their supreme dread, their invariable policy had been to fortify the aristocratic bulwarks of the constitution, and to watch, with jealous observation, the operations of that spirit of innovation, which, in our times, has been so extensively diffused throughout the great mass of the people. The coalition in question was, therefore, effected with as little sacrifice of principle as of interest. They had never, on any occasion, been entirely identified with the Whigs, with whom they occasionally acted; they regarded with detestation the countenance afforded by many members of opposition to principles, which they had combated with great perseverance, and which they considered of most dangorues tendency; and they thought themselves at liberty to throw their weight, such as it was, into the scale of government, when the general bearing of ministerial policy harmonised, better than the course pursued by the party they occasionally supported, with those aristocratic principles to which they were so warmly devoted. Their ac ceptance of office can be no good argument against the honesty and sincerity of their purpose. Voting with administration without identifying themselves with its measures and its responsibility, would have at the best been but a partial, precarious, and

inefficient species of co-operation. Every tyro in politics is aware, that the possession of influence follows the possession of power, and that an isolated party, standing on the mere basis of a name, a few votes, and even distinguished talents, would have proved an incumbrance rather than a support, and been an exception to that unity of action which it is the great object of every wise ministry to establish.

But however much the Grenvilles may have gained by this coalition, neither the country nor the ministry were much the better for it. Lord Grenville had retired from public life, and, with the exception of the Marquis Wellesley, no other member of his small party possessed such talents for oratory or business as rendered their co-operation of much real value. Of the motives and probable results of that nobleman's appointment to the viceroyalty of Ireland, we shall speak immediately; as to the rest, the most that can be said, is, that the opposition lost a few votes they could ill spare, and the ministry gained a few for which they

had little occasion.

Another change, which took place in the beginning of the year, was the retirement of Lord Sidmouth, who was succeeded in the office of Secretary of State for the Home Department by Mr Peel, a gentleman whose political principles, predilections, and prejudices, were in such perfect unison with his Lordship's, that this event could have no effect whatever on the course of administration. The resignation of the noble Lord was understood to have been altogether voluntary, and to have proceeded from finding the business of his office too much for his increasing age and infirmities.

CHAPTER II.

STATE OF IRELAND.

Brief view of the Disturbances in Ireland for the last sixty years.-Present Disorders in the Southern Counties.-Renewal of the Insurrection Act, and Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland, proposed.-Debates on these measures in both Houses of Parliament.-Bills passed.-New Administration and State of Parties.-Bills for indemnifying those who had seized arms, and for regulating the importation of arms and gunpowder into Ireland.-State of the Country under the operation of the new acts.-Convictions and executions in the West of Ireland under the Special Commission and at the Assizes.— Partial cessation of the outrages.-Sir John Newport's motion on the State of Ireland.-Famine in Munster and Connaught.-Causes of the sudden appearance of this dreadful calamity, and of its being confined to the Western Counties. Measures adopted by Government for the relief of the sufferers.General Subscriptions for this purpose throughout every part of England and Scotland-Application of these subscriptions, and appropriation of the surplus.-Effects of the famine on the general tranquillity of the Country.— Constabulary Bill.-Provisions of this Act.-Debate on the measure, which is warmly opposed by Mr C. Grant.-Bill for enabling ecclesiastical persons and others to grant leases of Tithes.-Marquis of Lansdown's motion on the state of Ireland, and his views on the subject of Tithes.—Mr Hume's motion on the state of the Established Church in Ireland.-Sir J. Newport's amendment. Renewal of the Insurrection Act.-Alleged ground for the necessity of that measure-State of the Country-Policy of Lord Wellesley-His unpopularity with the Orange Faction.-Outrage at the Theatre.-Legal Proceedings.Addresses of Congratulation.

THE disturbance which prevails in Ireland at the present moment, is only one of a series of commotions, closely resembling each other in their leading or predisposing causes, which have, for the last sixty years, broken out in succession, in different parts of that country, particularly in the south. The first occurred in 1760, and the actors in it were termed Levellers, and afterwards, from wearing as an uniform white frocks over their clothes, White

VOL. XIV. PART I.

Boys. Its commencement may be traced to the enclosure of commons, by which the tenantry were deprived of the rights of commonage, which they considered as a great grievance, and as a flagrant breach of faith on the part of the landlords. Accordingly they proceeded to level the fences of the new enclosures, and to commit other outrages; and having thus entered upon a career of violence, against their landlords in the first instance, they soon ex

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