committee of supply on the navy esti- | tion, or more sophistical than those mates, Ministers were thrown into a by which it was resisted; but it was minority on a purely party question, all in vain. The House was resolved regarding Mr R. Dundas and Mr W. not to be convinced the interests of L. Bathurst, two junior commissioners realised wealth had become so powerof the navy, whose united salary was ful in the Legislature that those of inonly £900 a-year, who were struck off dustry were overpowered; and the deby a majority of 139 to 121. En- bate-the last which took place on the couraged by this success, Sir James subject before the irrevocable change Graham moved, a few days after, that the existing system had brought about the salary of the Treasurer of the Navy was introduced-remains a memorable should be abolished, and the duties of and instructive monument for all futhe office transferred to the President ture times of the manner in which the of the Board of Trade, with which it plainest truths can be disregarded when had at one time been united. This they run adverse to the interests of a motion, however, was rejected by 188 powerful section of society, and a course to 90, and the same fate attended sev- of policy can be persisted in fraught eral other motions for the reduction of with consequences which those who oriparticular offices made by the same in-ginated it are to be the first to regret.* defatigable member. These repeated divisions on particular offices were in- On the one hand, it was maintained by dicative of the state of feeling of the Mr Attwood and Mr Baring: "It was in the leaders of the Whig party, who, cha-power of the Legislature to inflict upon the grined at not being admitted to a participation in the Government by the Duke of Wellington, took this mode of at once showing their displeasure and swelling the cry for economical reduction, by evincing the reluctance of Ministers to yield obedience to it. country such a metallic currency, and in such circumstances as they chose, but it was not in their power to control the effects of such a change. Introduced in 1819, rendered the nature of all contracts, and, for the great more stringent in 1826 and 1829, it has altered profit of capitalists and fundholders, spread ruin through the industrious classes in the country. During former periods there had been, it is true, many instances of some local or temporary distress, but they had been passing only, and the general career of national prosperity had been upon the whole uninterrupted. But when the Act of the Legislature forced us back to a metallic currency, distress, universal in its extent, and deplorable in its effects, followed upon the change; and such distress had regularly occurred whenever we approached even the ruinous measure of setting up an exclusive gold currency. In 1816 the first effort was made to return to the gold currency; but the 32. These were mere party moves, intended to displace a Ministry with out embarrassing their successors, and convert the suffering of the moment into the means of political advancement. But there were not awanting those who took a nobler as well as a juster view of the general distress, and boldly pointed out its cause in the policy regarding monetary mattersso profitable to realised capital, so difficulty was to find the gold, for it had been taken to the Continent during the war, where ruinous to laborious industry-which it had at one time been purchased for £5, 12s. had for ten years been pursued by the an ounce. In 1819 an Act of Parliament was Government. The subject was brought passed, by which the Bank of England was obliged to retire its notes in gold, valued at before the House of Commons by the £3, 17s. 104d. an ounce. We could not, howtwo men in the kingdom most com- ever, get back the gold without altering and petent to master it, Mr Attwood and raising the value of the paper money which Mr Baring, who moved that a gold by a great and rapid contraction of the curwe gave in exchange for it, which was done and silver standard should be substi- rency. The consequence was, that general tuted for the gold one, and that the ruin and unheard-of suffering were experiAct for prohibiting the issue of bank-enced by the productive and manufacturing notes below £5 in England and Ireland should be repealed. Nothing could be more convincing than the arguments and facts by which these very eminent men supported the mo classes throughout the empire, while the capitalists were proportionally enriched. "We then, in some degree, retraced our steps. We expanded the currency, and postponed the threatened resumption of cash payments, and the prosperity of 1818 was the consequence. It did not, however, long con 33. But although Ministers persisted | Exchequer in bringing forward the in shutting their eyes to the real cause budget of the year before; but, noof the distress, which was producing thing deterred by that circumstance, such a ferment throughout the coun- the Duke set about a series of reductry, they were fully aware of its exist- tions in every department of the pubence and vehemence, and were deter- lic service, which enabled him not only mined to meet it in the only way which to face it, but to present to the House was possible, while upholding the mon- a surplus of no less than £3,400,000 etary system, which was by the most available to the reduction of taxation, rigid and unsparing economy. Never still leaving an excess of income over before had the pruning-hook been ap- expenditure of £2,667,000 applicable plied with so fearless and unsparing a to the reduction of debt. hand to every branch of the public expenditure; and, in truth, so many and powerful were the interests bent upon upholding it, that nothing but the personal weight and determination of the Duke of Wellington could have carried through the reductions. The income realised in the preceding year had fallen £560,000 short of what had been anticipated by the Chancellor of the tinue; for the measures adopted in 1819 for changing the standard again brought distress and ruin on the country. Why was the prosperity of the year 1818 less durable than that which preceded it? Simply because the Act of 1819 fell upon it and dispersed it. "The intense suffering of 1820, 1821, and 1822 at length forced a measure of relief upon the Government, which was effected by the prolongation, in the last of these years, for ten years longer, of the right to issue notes below £5, then on the point of expiring in terms of the Act of 1819. What was the consequence? Prosperity again returned, like the sun emerging from behind the clouds, and shedding the light of his radiance and the warmth of his beams on a grateful earth. The prosperity of 1823, 1824, and 1825 was without precedent in this country; but it was as shortlived as it was brilliant. Why was this? Simply because the Act of 1819 was longlived, and curtailed its existence. That the Act of 1819 had produced these effects, must become evident to any person who looks closely at the history of the country since its date. Four months before that Act passed, the Prince Regent, in a speech from the throne, declared the trade, commerce, and manufactures of the country to be in a most flourishing condition; and, in fact, in the course of that year the revenue of the country increased £4,700,000. Within six months after the passing of the Act of 1819 he was obliged to call Parliament unexpectedly together in consequence of the disaffection generated by distress in the manufacturing districts. It was relieved, but how? Solely by departing from the principle of a metallic currency, and issuing £4,000,000 by the Bank in the shape of loans to the distressed manufacturers. When the banks, by the Act of 1822, were allowed to continue small notes in their ússues, prosperity returned, insomuch that, on 34. The taxes remitted in consequence of these great reductions were very considerable, insomuch that even the Whig Opposition admitted that this year of general distress and diminished national income was distinguished by a greater reduction of taxation than had taken place in any year since the peace. The taxes selected for remission were the beer-duty, estimated at opening the session of 1825, the King told the Parliament the country had never been so prosperous. At the close of that year, the country was in a woeful state of distress, occasioned by the contraction of the currency by £3,500,000 between March and December, in consequence of the drain of gold which had set in from South America, and the crisis was only surmounted by the sudden issue of £6,000,000 additional notes in the last of these months. In a word, whenever the currency is plentiful, we are in a state of prosperity and contentment; the moment it is restricted, we fall into a state of misery, and are on the verge of revolution." On the other hand, it was contended by Mr Harris and Mr Huskisson: "That the project of having a double standard would fand the country in utter confusion. The plan proposed was to have the relative value of gold and silver fixed as it was in 1798, whereas it was well known that the relative value was different from what it had been at that period. That difference was now 5 per cent. Every debtor therefore, if the double standard were adopted, would hasten to pay it in the silver standard, and so the creditor would lose 5 per cent on his debt. Would not the whole country present a scene of confusion and ruin if the House of Commons were to enact that every man who did not instantly recover payment of his debt would lose 5 per cent upon it? Silver never was, in practice, the standard of the country. In practice, independent of the law, silver had never been in a state to be used as a legal tender. Latterly the law had enacted that it should not be a legal standard beyond £25. By weight, indeed, it was a legal tender to any amount, but practically it had become so depreciated that there was no such thing as a standard by weight." Mr Attwood's resolutions were negatived without a division. 36. These reductions, however, such as they were, revealed the perilous nature of the descent on which the nation had embarked, and the evident approaching ABANDONMENT OF THE SINKING FUND, so long and justly regarded as the palladium of the nation, its sheet-anchor alike in prosperous and adverse fortune. This melancholy £3,000,000; that on leather, £350,000; | branches of industry, commercial and and that on cider, £25,000: in all, agricultural, had reduced the incomes £3,400,000--to commence on the 10th of the industrious classes to the extent of next October. To meet these great of a hundred and fifty millions yearly. reductions, the duty on English spirits was raised from 7s. to 8s. a gallon, and on Scotch and Irish from 2s. 10d. to 3s., which would yield an increase of £330,000 a-year; and a more efficient resource was provided in the reduction of the interest of the 4 per cents to 34, which it was calculated would afford a relief to the extent of £750,000. Looking to the probable increase of the re-topic did not escape the notice of Mr venue in other departments, by the effect of the reductions proposed in this year, it was calculated that the probable amount of the real surplus applicable to the reduction of debt would be £2,400,000 a-year. accumulation of taxes, under the burden of which they are ready to sink. Upon the debate of this day do they place all their hopes of a full return Baring, who, amidst the chorus of Liberal flattery and approbation at the proposed reductions, had the courage to express the following just and manly sentiments: "Mr Pitt, at the time when he proposed the Sinking Fund 35. This budget, as is always the case in 1786, said, 'To you do the public in the outset with one which proposes turn their eye, justly expecting that, a great reduction of taxation, was ex- from the trust you hold, you will make tremely popular, and won for Ministers, the most strenuous efforts in order to for a brief season, golden opinions from afford them the long-wished-for proall classes of men. Even the most decid-spect of being relieved from an endless ed of the Liberals gave the Duke credit for unsparing economy, and confessed "that this session had given the most important financial relief to the nation of any since the peace; and the ac-of prosperity and security, which will knowledgment of this by the Liberal members was full and gracious." Yet did the reductions, from which so much was expected, entirely fail to give any sensible relief to the nation, or alleviate, in any degree, the general distress which prevailed in consequence of the ruinous fall of prices. On the contrary, in the face of the reduction in expenditure and taxation, which had elicited such unbounded applause from the Liberal leaders and press, the distress went on accumulating, until in this very year it induced a change in the Ministry, and in less than two years an entire revolution in the constitution!—a striking proof of the fallacy of the remedial measures, on which alone the Opposition at that period were so strongly set. It is not surprising it was so, for the proposed reductions only relieved the nation to the extent of three or four millions; whereas the monetary laws, by cutting at least 50 per cent from the remuneration of all give confidence and vigour to those exertions in trade and commerce upon which the flourishing state of this country so much depends. To behold the country emerging from a most unfortunate war, which added such an accumulation to sums before immense, that it was the belief of the surrounding nations, and of many among ourselves, that our powers must fail us, and that we should sink under our difficulties; to behold this nation, instead of despairing at its alarming condition, looking its situation boldly in the face, and establishing, upon a permanent plan, the means of relieving itself from all its encumbrances, must give such an idea of our resources, and of our spirit of exertion, as will astonish the nations around us, and enable us to regain that pre-eminence to which, on many accounts, we were so justly entitled.' These were the words of Mr Pitt, which were re-echoed by Mr Fox, who, struck with the necessity of giv ing increased stability to the principle | ruin, defeat, and overturn the whole of security on which the public creditor plan. He hoped, therefore, that the relied, stifled, on this occasion, the House would hold itself solemnly eager spirit of party which at that time animated the House of Commons, and so exhibited a contrast, he regretted to say, to the degeneracy in the present time, when, within and without that House, no repugnance is shown to a total departure from those just principles upon which Mr Pitt mainly relied to conquer our impending difficulties. 37. "The proposed reduction of taxation is £3,400,000. It is provided for by £2,667,000, being the existing surplus of income over expenditure, by £330,000 a year from the increased duty on spirits, and £110,000 from stamps. The whole would amount to £3,070,000, leaving £330,000 a-year to be still provided for, after applying to the reduction every farthing of the Sinking Fund. We have lived to see the time when a minister appeared in the House, and, after frittering away, on one pretence or another, all the benefits which were hoped to be drawn from the Sinking Fund, finally proposed to sweep away altogether the income laid by for its maintenance ! Means might and should have been found to support this fund; but if we are to adopt the doctrines expounded in the market-place-if we are not to look at the consequence of being compelled to go to war, but, on the contrary, to obey the recommendations, and chime in with the prejudices, and act according to the political wisdom to be heard at Penenden Heath, or in the market-place at Chelmsford, then the credit, the honour, the interest, and the power of this country must ultimately sink with the weakness which permitted the House to listen to such suggestions. Mr Pitt, when he established the Sinking Fund, had declared that no minister would ever have the confidence to come down to the House and propose the repeal of a measure the tendency of which was to relieve the people of their burdens; and that to suffer that fund, at any time, or on any pretence, to be diverted from its proper object, would be to pledged never to listen to any proposal for its repeal on any pretence whatever.' Yet after, during a long course of years, the Sinking Fund had been frittered away on various pretences, it is now proposed to abolish it entirely, and leave the debt for ever a crushing burden upon the nation, by appropriating the whole surplus, and more than the surplus, to the remission of taxation. Even if the modified Sinking Fund of £5,000,000 yearly, which Parliament so solemnly pledged itself, in 1819, to keep up inviolate, had been maintained, the House would now have had a surplus of above £7,000,000 to apply to the reduction of debt, and instead of entertaining a proposal for the reduction of interest on the Four per Cents, the whole of the debt at this moment might have been converted into terminable annuities, and its entire extinction insured at no distant period." These remarks made no sort of impression, and the ministerial budget, repealing taxes to such an extent as to extinguish the last remnant of the Sinking Fund, passed without a division, amidst a chorus of approbation from both sides of the House, and in particular the warmest applause from the Liberal Opposition. 38. We have now reached a turningpoint in English history-that when the Sinking Fund was practically abandoned, and the nation voluntarily took the whole public debt as a permanent and irremovable burden on itself. That this has been the case is evident from this decisive fact, that the unredeemed debt was considerably less in this year than it was in 1852, before the Russian war broke out! Two-and-twenty years of unbroken Continental peace has been attended with no other effect than adding eight * Unredeemed debt in 1830, Ditto in 1852, Added to funded debt in twenty-two years, £757,486,997 765,126,582 £7,639,585 -PORTER'S Parliamentary Tables, i. 6; and Finance Tables, 1853. * millions to the national debt al-cessive administrations, all bidding though, during the fifteen preceding against each other in the race for popuyears, mutilated as the Sinking Fund larity, that these repeals amounted, behad been by successive administra- tween 1815 and 1830, to £17,560,244, tions, a very sensible reduction in this clear indirect and assessed taxes remitdebt had been effected, for it had been ted, after taking into view what had diminished by seventy-five millions.* been imposed during the same period. It is a melancholy reflection that It was impossible that so vast a reductwenty three years of subsequent tion, coinciding with the additional peace has brought only an increase of remission of £15,000,000 direct prothe debt, and that its redemption is perty tax during the same period, now, by common consent, regarded as could take place without altogether exhopeless. It is the more so, when it tinguishing the Sinking Fund, which is recollected that the Sinking Fund, was based entirely upon those indirect at the close of the war, amounted to taxes, and thereby inflicting a fatal £15,000,000 annually; and that, if it and irrecoverable wound upon the had not been subsequently broken up- whole financial system of the nation. on by successive administrations, it would have entirely extinguished the debt by the year 1845. 40. It is the more surprising that this great reduction of indirect taxes should have been carried through by every successive administration which succeeded to the helm of affairs, when it is recollected that the Government shared to the very full in the embar try. There was no farmer, manufacturer, or weaver more embarrassed for money, in proportion to their resources, than the Treasury was during the greater part of this period. There must obviously have been some great cause constantly in operation from 1815 39. It is easy to see to what this great change, fraught with such vast and irreparable effects upon the future destinies and ultimate fate of the British empire, has been, in the first in-rassment so strongly felt in the counstance, owing. It arose from the repeal of so large a portion of the indirect taxes, which, according to Mr Pitt's policy, were to have been kept as a sacred resource, never to be trenched upon, so far as they were necessary to provide for the Sinking Fund. The direct taxes, universally felt as so oppressive, were never intended by him to be prolonged beyond the termination of the war. To such an extent has this system of abandoning the indirect taxes, the sole support of the Sinking Fund, been carried by suc * Unredeemed debt in 1815, £816,311,940 Ditto in 1830, * INDIRECT AND ASSESSED TAXES REPEALED AND LAID ON, FROM 1816 TO 1830, BOTH INCLUSIVE, VIZ. : Years. Taken off. £2,915,888 Laid on. £375,058 7,991 1,356 1816, 1817, 36,495 1818, 9,504 1819, 269,484 3,102,302 1820, 4,000 119,602 757,486,997 |