seeing the noble lord in his place, to whom the principal direction of the affairs of the E. India Company were committed, rose to ask, whether it would not be for the convenience of the house, and the full understanding of the subject, that the papers which were necessary to the farther discussion of the India budget, should be laid on the table before Thursday, the day on which that discussion was fixed, in order that those papers should be in the contemplation of the house, and that members who were disposed to deliver their opinions upon the interesting question to which they referred, should come forward prepared to speak upon their merits. With a view to this he submitted it to the candour of the noble lord, whether it would not be right to present these papers this evening?

stated, that the papers relative to the subject to which the hon. member alluded, were not quite ready. He had also to mention that his mind was not yet made up as to the precise accounts which ought to be submitted to the house upon this occasion, but on Thursday he should be prepared to bring them forward.

said, that as an opinion had gone abroad, justified, in a great measure, by the words of the late Volunteer Consolidation act, that officers of volunteer corps, who received the marching guineas for men going on permanent duty, &c. were to be considered as public accomptants, and therefore liable to be called on by the commissioners for auditing public accounts, which must be attended with great inconvenience to those gent. he felt it his duty to move for leave to bring in a bill to explain the act alluded to upon this point.

suggested to the learned gent. the propriety of introducing into this act some clause to remove the doubts which prevailed as to the power of assessing the quota to be furnished by each parish under the Additional Force act. According to the provisions of the supplementary militia, and army of reserve acts, a deduction was to be made in the quotes of parishes, according to the number of balloted men belonging to volunteer corps in each parish. The Additional Force act, which professed to be founded upon a similar principle, although it superseded the operation of those acts, was in his judgment defective, and required an alteration upon the point he referred to.

thought there was no necessity whatever for the alteration which the learned member recommended, as it must appear, from a full consideration of the terms of the act, that in fixing the quota for each parish, reference was to be always had to the number of volunteers it furnished.—The motion was agreed to, and a bill brought in to explain the said act, so far as it relates to money received by the officers of volunteer corps, for the use of such corps, and that such officers shall not be deemed public accomptants, &c. The bill was read a 1st and 2d time, and committed for to-morrow.

rose to state, that he had heard nothing advanced during the progress of the bill, which could induce him to think the measure could in any respect be justified, especially that part of it which relates to the tax on law proceedings. He thought, therefore, he was bound in duty to oppose it in this its last stage. The hon. and learned gent. then went on to recapitulate the arguments he had several times used against the bill, and concluded by giving it his decided negative.

stated, that he had received a petition from some of his constituents to present to the house against the provisions of this bill, respecting promissory notes and bills of exchange of a small amount; but he was aware that he could not present any petition against a tax bill. He would, however, read this petition as a part of his speech.

submitted to the judgment of the hon. member, whether it would be competent to any member, according to established usage, to read a petition which he was not permitted to present. Such a proceeding did not appear as at all consonant to the substance of the order which precluded the admission of such petition.

resumed and stated, that the petition he referred to was from the traders of Yorkshire, whose capitals were small, and whose transactions would be much impeded and injured by the proposed advance of taxation; an advance which by no means applied fairly, as the tax upon bills from 100l. to 200l. was to be only 4s. while that upon bills of from 5l. to 30l. was to be 1s. 6d. The hon. gent. strongly recommended to ministers to re-consider this subject, and not thus to aggravate the difficulties which the small capitalists, in the woollen trade had to contend with.

was sure that, upon a farther consideration of this subject, the objections stated by the petitioners alluded to, however respectable they were, would be found erroneous. Promissory notes, he said, would not be affected, as would appear from a review of the schedule, to a just examination of which he referred those who were disposed to object to the measure.

said, that the apprehension of the mischievous tendency of the tax he referred to, was very generally felt among the industrious and respectable persons to whom he alluded.

argued against the bill on the same grounds as on a former occasion, and expressed his regret that he had not been able to procure a copy of the treatise (Mr. Bentham's) to which he had before adverted, and where he was sure, both from what he remembered of the work, and what he knew of the writer, there would be many good arguments to this point, beyond those which he or others had urged. These were indeed sufficient fully to decide his opinion, and to make him glad to avail himself of this opportunity, as he had done of a preceding one, to mark his hostility to the measure. There were two parts of the bill to which he meant particularly to object: that which levied a tax directly upon one class of people, the attornies; and that which went generally to tax law proceedings. To tax a particular class of people, except upon the idea that the tax was not to rest with them, but through them to pass to the community at large, was so repugnant to every principle of justice or policy, that it was unnecessary to argue against it. It was a mere robbery, and could proceed upon no principle but that of there is the money, and there we will go to get it. The only pretext for the tax could be, that it would be levied upon the clients; and that as all men were liable to become clients, it was, in fact, a general tax. In this view it came under the other general head of a tax on law proceedings; where certainly the character of it was not much mended; for any thing more unjust or impolitic, more contrary to all principle, than tax upon law proceedings, could not be conceived. The only possible case in which such taxes could be justified, was that in which they were matters of regulation. This might sometimes be necessary, though it was always to a degree objectionable. It was never good, as he had had occasion to remark lately on a different subject (the bill for the disfranchisement of the borough of Aylesbury), to mix in legislation objects of a separate and independent character, so as to leave the motive of the legislature doubtful. It was desirable to have it known, how much was done for tax, and how much for regulation; that what might be called the public motive, might stand clear of that which might be called the interested one. But in this instance, there was not a pretence for talking of regulation. By whom had the happy discovery been made, that law proceedings were too cheap? He could understand the possibility of such a case; or rather that if the case existed, the inconvenience of it would be great. No greater evil could be conceived, than a state of things in which every man might institute suits against his neighbour at no expence or hazard. No man's property would be at rest for a moment. Twenty Westminster Halls, sitting every day, and all day long, would not suffice for the litigation of London alone. But surely this was a state of things of which we were in no great danger. What had been done by the legislature already, what was sure to be done at all times by others without that assistance, might exempt us from the apprehension of being ruined by the cheapness of law. We might safely trust ourselves, in that respect, to the learned profession itself, which would take ample care that men should not go to law for nothing. It was perfectly idle to say, therefore, that any interference of the legislature was necessary in that view. But if a tax upon law was not necessary to guard against the danger of law becoming too cheap, was there not a fear that such an addition to the expences already attending these proceedings, might render them too dear? It was notorious that it must be so. The evil existed to a degree already which required no new circumstance to inflame it. The expences of law were already a denial of justice in many instances to the poor, and sometimes, it was to be feared, a means of oppression in the hands of the rich. This, to a certain degree, was unavoidable. It was inherent in the nature of things, and could be no subject, therefore, of rational complaint: but it might well be a subject of complaint, if we wantonly and unnecessarily should think fit to aggravate the evil. It was quite ridiculous; if, while we were boasting that in this country the courts of law were open to every one, we should be fortifying the reply that had been made to that observation, "aye, so is the London Tavern, to those who are not afraid of the bill." This was conclusive as to the propriety of such a tax, even supposing it to be in other respects right, But the whole principle of it was wrong, independent of the degree, and of the effects which it might incidentally produce. To tax law was, as had been well observed, to tax necessaries. It was to tax, not the property, but the means by which the property was to be acquired. This in a degree, and indirectly must, to be sure, often be done. A tax upon one thing might be said to affect indirectly the price of every other. But in general, the object of taxation was to levy a contribution on the property when possessed, and not to bear upon the means of acquiring it. You did not directly tax the smith's hammer, or the carpenter's saw, though a tax upon iron, or upon shipping, might indirectly, and in some degree, affect the price of those articles. This was an argument which he had used many years ago upon the shop-tax, and which, he must still think, was well founded. A man's shop was the implement of his trade. Though law was not, strictly speaking, the implement of trade to any but lawyers, it was to many the means or implement of acquiring that which ought, above all things, to be considered, namely, the property to which they already possessed the right. It was no answer to this to say, that the tax fell only on those who had not the right, namely, on the party who lost his suit, that the expences of the other were paid out of the costs: besides that the costs granted never covered the whole expense, who could mean to assert, that the merits of a cause, and its success, were to be considered as one and the same? Our law supposed no such thing. We had the institution, as all other countries had, of tribunals of appeal, being tribunals founded on the supposition, that former decisions, however cautiously and conscientiously made, might be wrong. This might happen even where the questions, submitted successively to the two tribunals, as in the case of appeal, were precisely the same: but how often must the fact be, that from accident or mismanagement, from the defect of evidence, from the absence of witnesses, from the loss of papers, from want of timely information or of judicious advice, the case submitted to the tribunal in the first instance was not the true one, and could not decide, therefore, on the real merits of the cause. After all, was no cause fit to be tried, that was not found ultimately to have the merits on its side? Were the parties to be bound under a penalty rightly to decide on their imperfect and partial information and with their defective judgments, that question on which men the most enlightened, after a hearing of both sides, were found often to differ in their opinions? Every man, it was true, came into a court of justice under that risk; but was it fit, that that risk should be unnecessarily aggravated? It was the case of the old tribunal at Lyons, mentioned by a classical author, where the penalties were such, as to make the situation of a suitor there a proverbial instance of fear.

Sic

Palluit, ut nudis pressis qui calcibus anguem,

Aut Lugdunensem rhetor dictums ad aram.

How many must be deterred from entering into a court of justice under such risks, even with all the merits of the cause on their side; and, what was not less to the purpose, how many even of professional men (attornies he meant), who would now sometimes undertake a cause, which they thought well of, at their own risk, would be deterred from the undertaking, when the loss on failure must be so very heavy? But of all the extraordinary justifications or apologies for this measure that were ever thought of, was that of a learned gent. the other night, who bid us recal to our recollection, that the tax in question did not extend to that part of our law which was vested in the hands of justices of the peace and other magistrates! We were to be reconciled to the obstruction of justice in civil suits, by the facility of its execution in the case of penal statutes! A man was to console himself for the loss of his estate, by the reflection that another might with great facility be committed the to prison! Nay, the merit of the idea did not stop even there, for as the person himself might be the object of the law in both its operations, the real state of the case was, that a man should be consoled for the loss of his property, by reflecting that he himself might with great ease be committed to prison. The case was not unlikely to happen; for the very want of that property, which these increased expences made it impossible for the owner to recover, might be precisely the means of plunging him into distress, and thereby procuring him the benefit of that free operation of the law in other respects, which the hon. gent. held out. "Don't be cast down," he would say; "you have lost the hope of trying your cause, and with it that of recovering the little property which you think you have a claim to; but should you, in consequence, and from the distress in which you are now left, be led into any offence against the revenue orgame laws, or be guilty of any other irregularity, you will find that, however difficult or expensive the law may be in enabling you to obtain your own, it will furnish the means of sending you to prison in the easiest and cheapest manner possible." There really seemed, therefore, to be no one ground which this measure had to stand upon. It was a mere determination to get so much money; for which nothing could be pleaded, but that the money was wanted. The reality of this plea he could easily understand, and readily feel for. He could conceive what was the situation of the right hon. gent. tormented perhaps with the cravings of an empty exchequer; and could sympathise with him accordingly: but so he could with a man who, in compliance with the cravings of an empty stomach, should rob a butcher's shop; yet without being able to pass over the offence, or to say that people's property could be left open to such depredations. In the present instance, there was far less excuse. Though the pressure might be nearly as urgent, there was not the same impossibility, as might exist sometimes in the other case, of procuring relief by better and honester means.—The bill was then read a 3d time, after which.

proposed a new clause, "providing, that from the time of passing the act, no stamp duty shall be chargeable on the commission of any officer of a volunteer or yeomanry corps." This clause was brought up, read and agreed to, and the bill passed.

rose and stated, that since this bill had been in the committee; it had been found advisable to alter the arrangements respecting the time at which the holders of the Loyalty Loan should declare their wish to avail themselves of the terms of this bill, and the period when the lords of the treasury should signify the description of stock in which their claims were to be satisfied. In the former case the blank was filled up with the 20th of Aug. and in the latter with the 10th of Oct. It was now proposed, that the lords of the treasury should declare the stock into which the Loyalty Loan should be convertible, on or before the 20th of Sept. and that the Loyalty Loan-holders should have until the 5th of Oct. to signify their assent to the terms proposed. The hon. member concluded with proposing an amendment agreeable to his statement.—The motion was agreed to, and the bill was ordered to be read a 3d time to-morrow.