rose to opposes it. He said, he considered it not only vexatious to the parties who were the objects of it, but it held out no advantages beyond those contained in the old laws of the 1st of Anne, and the 20th of George II. Instead of putting an end to disputes between masters and manufacturers, it would lay the foundation for fresh ones. The bill, besides, was wholly unnecessary; and to shew that it was, he would just state, that when he first had the honour of a seat in parliament, the quantity of cotton consumed by manufacturers in a year amounted to 13 millions of pounds weight; and the quantity now consumed was 56 millions of pounds weight. This was a decisive proof that the trade had prospered under the old laws; and that there was no necessity for new ones.

went into a detail of the circumstances that gave rise to the bill of 1800, relating to this subject. That bill had either been defective in its provisions, or its regulations had not been put in practice. A petition the year following had been presented to the house from the journeymen, praying that the regulations adopted by the bill might be put in force, and last year they had come forward also with another petition of a similar nature. The committee to which this petition had been referred, had come to a resolution that a bill should be brought in to make those regulations effective, but the session was so nearly at a close, that this resolution could not be conveniently carried into effect, and the present bill therefore had been submitted to the house for that purpose. The masters themselves had complained that they were aggrieved by the bill of 1800, as the men were allowed the selection of arbitrators in cases where disputes might arise. This bill went therefore to provide against such complaints, as well as against those of the men. By the present bill, neither of the parties had the nomination of the arbitrators, but the justices of the peace were to be vested with this privilege. The bill was not proposed as a new measure, but merely as a means of rendering an old one effectual.

thought that the hon. member opposite (Col. Stanley) had stated a very important fact, which ought to have great influence with the house. He had told them that the trade had made very rapid progress, and had given them the data on which he founded this assertion. But it was impossible that any manufactory could flourish to such an extent, unless it had been properly conducted, and much less if its regulations were hostile to its prosperity. He argued, therefore, that the present existing regulations were sufficient for every purpose either of necessity or expediency. The prosperity of the manufacture was the best proof that every thing was going on well, and they ought to be cautious not to interrupt this prosperity by any unnecessary measure. He did not think it at all necessary, in regard to any disputes that might arise, to interfere with the authority of the magistrates, or to take the right of settling such disputes out of their hands, in order to put it into the hands of others.—A division was then called for, when there appeared, For the motion, 27; Against it, 8. The house having resumed, the report was ordered to be received to-morrow.

rose for the purpose of entering his solemn protest against the bill, and the principle it implied. It was founded on the same principle, he said, that had been contended for by the right hon. the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the year 1794, on the landing of the Hessian troops on the isle of Wight, though then discouraged by almost every one of his colleagues, that it was constitutional to introduce foreign troops, independently of the consent of parliament, as a part of his Majesty's prerogative. The majority of the house, on that occasion, supported the measure, but its effect was such as to incur the disapprobation of the country at large. It was in opposition to the spirit of the constitution, and offered to it a severe wound. The present bill, he argued, was precisely of a similar nature, and went to second a precedent which had been so unhappily permitted to exist. The hon. member said he would repeat the questions that were put yesterday to ministers by his hon. friend on the same bench (Mr. Francis). Did this measure, he asked, originate in the privy council, and why did not this bill, in the usual form and language of such bills, state that his Majesty in this acted by the advice and with the consent of his privy council? The best means, he thought, of removing objections, was for the gent. opposite to give an explicit answer. The hon. gent. then considered the bill as a measure of state, but no case had been made out to shew that it had any foundation, either in necessity or in sound policy. He was not surprised, however, that those grounds had not been resorted to, as it could not have been maintained on any of them, without admitting that the present force of the country, amounting to above 800,000 men, was inadequate to its defence, and that to our disgrace we were to have recourse to foreign mercenaries. The introduction of foreign force into the country was not only unconstitutional, but dangerous in the extreme. In order to induce the house more easily to consent to the measure, it was stated that these men were Hanoverians, hitherto subjects of his Majesty, and consequently entitled to some degree of regard. This fact he denied. They were not all Hanoverians; for better than one-fourth of them were the sweepings and refuse of other parts of Germany, besides those that constituted his Majesty's dominions. He complained that the bill, notwithstanding its importance, had not been printed for the use of the members. This omission completely fixed on the measure the character he had given it. The hon. gent. then requested the house to look to the conduct of Ireland on a similar occasion in 1779. When Lord Harcourt offered the services of 4000 foreign troops, in room of a greater number that had been daughter to America, though Protestants, they were rejected by the parliament of Ireland, who declared that they would accept of no foreign help, as they felt competent to defend themselves, or if not, that they were not worth defending; and this, too, was at a crisis of danger, when the combined fleets of France and Spain, to our great astonishment, were in possession of the Channel. Instead of relying on foreigners, 50,000 volunteers on that occasion presented themselves for the defence of their country, and were wisely trusted by the then ministry of England. This confidence, the result of necessity in England, was, nevertheless, gratefully received in Ireland, and from that moment lessened the dissatisfaction that then prevailed in that country. He begged the house to contrast the effects of a well-placed confidence with the effects of a system of rebellion that had lately been too prevalent in that country. The hon. gent. concluded by protesting warmly against every principle that went to encourage the introduction of foreign forces, without the previous consent of parliament, as unconstitutional and illegal.—The report was then received, and the bill ordered to be read a 3d time.

rose to beg the attention of the house for a few minutes. He complained that certain statements had been made on a former evening by the right hon. gent. opposite (Mr. Foster), which went to attach blame to the late administration of Ireland. He was far from thinking that right hon. gent. had intended any misrepresentation, but at the same time the statements he had made were far from being correct, and the house, he was afraid, had been induced to draw from them conclusions very unfavourable both to himself and to the govt. of Ireland. From the nature of the statements that had been laid before them, they must have drawn inferences very remote from the truth. He by no means imputed to the right hon. gent. a wish to produce this effect, nor did he wish to throw any obstacle in his way to the office that he understood he would soon publicly be announced to occupy; but he wished to vindicate Lord Hardwick and others, and to shew that they were not liable to the imputation that the statements he alluded to really bore. The right hon. gent. then went into a minute view of the various statements which the right hon. gent. had made on a preceding evening, in regard to the decrease of the Irish revenue, and the great balances in the hands of the collectors. He denied that the revenue was much diminished, or that the balances in the hands of the collectors were great in the manner that had been represented. An impression had been made on the house, that above half a million remained in the hands of the collectors, which ought to have been received; it would, therefore, be necessary for him to state to the house the nature of those balances. In general, the balances were not cash received, but charges that had not yet been available. Many of the balances arose from insolvent arrears, and such arrears would happen independently of the best regulations. The right hon. gent. then adverted to the debt of Ireland. He argued, that this debt had been necessarily increased lately. Very considerable ad-ditional expenses had been occasioned, not only by preparations against a foreign enemy, but by providing also against the designs and machinations of such at home as had been infatuated enough to contemplate the overthrow of the govt. Other extraordinary expenses also had been incurred by winding up the Union, and by the compensations that had been judged necessary to such as had suffered by that measure. He adverted also to the state of the revenue, and attempted to account for the apparent decrease, as it stood in the statement of the right hon. gent. During the troubles in Ireland, the stores had been exhausted, and the warehouses left completely empty: upon the return of tranquility, therefore, a great deal of importation took place, which added very much to the revenue of that year. He could not but consider it, however, as unfair to compare a year of this description with the one following, in which less importation even than usual would be unnecessary, for the purpose of pointing out the decrease of revenue. He had intended, he said, to bring forward a measure relating to the absentees from Ireland, which would have been productive, he flattered himself, of considerable advantage to the revenue; but certain circumstances had occurred that had prevented him from putting his design in execution. He concluded by declaring the satisfaction be should have in regaining, the good opinion of the house, which he thought must have been forfeited by the statements which he had now attempted to correct. The right hon. gent. then moved, "that there be laid before the house a copy of the report of J. Croker, Esq. surveyor-general of the port of Dublin, as ordered by, and delivered to, the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Oct. 1802: also other reports of a similar kind, down to the latest period."

assured the right hon. gent. that in the statements lately made by him, he had made no allusion whatever to the Union; nor did he say that, during the discussions on the Union in Ireland, he had predicted what the state, of her finances would be. All he said was, that two years ago, in that house, he had stated his apprehensions as to what the situation of Ireland was likely to be. He never alluded to the Union as being the cause of the failure of Irish finances. He now believed, that the situation of Ireland was such as to be capable of great improvement, and was increasing rapidly in prosperity. And whatever he had said on the subject of the Union, during the discussions upon it in Ireland, he now felt it his duty to forego every thing he then advanced, and to do his utmost endeavours to mend the defects of the country, and increase all the advantages she must derive from the measure. These were the sentiments that had at all times been expressed by him since the Union took place. Now with respect to the question of balances remaining in the hands of collectors, he must contend that there was in the paper before the house the sum of 550,000l. acknowledged to be in the hands of collectors. And he would ask the right hon. gent. if he thought the officers in Ireland did their duty, if they suffered one-fifth of the revenue of Ireland to remain in the hands of the collectors? He was justified in saying that the revenue was not collected as it ought to have been. What he asserted was, that govt. should now be in possession of these arrears, and that the money was withheld somewhere in its passage from the pocket of the subject into the treasury.

thought it very unfortunate that the two right hon. gent. did not understand one another. There must, he apprehended, be some extraordinary intricacy in the question, as they could neither convince one another, nor satisfy the house which was in the right. If what the right hon. gent. on the same bench (Mr. Corry) had said, was really the fact, he was completely convinced he had cleared himself from every imputation of blame; but it was rather singular they could not come to a proper understanding. The English members, he was sure, must go away very dissatisfied, as the right hon. gent. opposite had given no satisfactory answer, and as the case required some explanation to those who were unacquainted with Irish affairs. He did not know what the items of those balances might be, but he understood they must be arrears of money in their hands, and that the arrears must be of such a nature as were not allowed by law to lie in this manner in hand. It would give more satisfaction, he thought, could the accounts with the different items be laid before the house.

said, what he meant to contend was, that every farthing of arrears mentioned in the paper before the house, ought to have been collected, and in the treasury of Ireland; that the arrears outstanding were those which ought not to have been suffered to lie out. This was all he could say at present; there were various items in the balances which would be laid before the house, and might be examined hereafter: upon these he would give every information in his power, but he could not say any thing more on the subject, till all the accounts were laid before the house.

said, that in order to be satisfied whether the balances were actually in the hands of the collectors, he applied to a right hon. friend of his, who was sec. to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and from him he had learned, that a month's credit was given for the payment of the duties on excise; but that the collectors were charged with the money for that time, although they could not have received it. This was the reason why so much money appeared to be in their hands. He hoped this statement would remove any impression that might have been made unfavourable to the govt. of Ireland; and that those who had supposed her to be, from the statements of the right hon. gent. in a sinking state, would now entertain a different opinion.

denied his having ever said that Ireland was in a sinking state; on the contrary, he had declared, that by great efforts she was capable of retrieving all those difficulties.—The motion of Mr. Corry was then agreed to. After which he moved, "that there be laid before the house a copy of all the general orders issued by the commissioners of excise and customs in Ireland, since 1800, for the better collecting and paying in of the revenues of Ireland. Ordered.—Adjourned.