wished to know, whether, if any embarrassments or arrears regarding the princess's previous establishment should exist, this income was to be clogged with their liquidation? This, he thought, ought not to be, but that her royal highness should be enabled to come into public life perfectly free from any incumbrance whatever. He alluded to former grants made for the establishment of different branches of the royal family, which not being adequate to the discharge of pre- vious incumbrances, as well as to support the splendour for which they were granted, left these illustrious personages surrounded by difficulties which they had never been able to overcome. The House ought, on this occasion, to take care that there should be no debt arising from the outfit, which might diminish the annuity intended to be granted. A full and sufficient sum ought to be granted to prevent any accident of this kind.

said, he believed it was fully understood, from the former statement of his right hon. friend, that the sum agreed to for the outfit would be fully adequate to the purpose.

observed, that wishing to be perfectly liberal towards her royal highness, as the House and the country ought to be, he had acceded to all the propositions that ministers had brought forward hitherto in her behalf; but he would not agree to any thing farther. He was of opinion that any thing beyond what had been proposed would be exceedingly improper; and he hoped her royal highness and her intended husband would confine their expenses within what had been granted by the liberality of parliament. This liberality was no new feature; it had been amply and sufficiently shown at all times, and towards every member of the royal family, and what was granted ought to be abided by. He had therefore never voted for any sum to liquidate arrears which could not be justified; nor would he, as long as he lived, ever give a vote for the payment of one farthing of the debts of any prince, or misister alive or dead [Hear, hear!].

The House then went in to a committee, and on the resolutions for granting the annuity being read.

desired a clause to be read respecting the annuity; it was accordingly read, when it was proposed to fill up a blank with the words 60,000l. Mr. Brougham said he had not the smallest desire to make any objections to the proposition; but he wished to know in what form the annuity was to be paid. According to the chancellor of the exchequer's statement on a former evening, her royal highness's establishment had already cost at the rate of 30,000l. a year, chiefly from the civil list. He had understood that her royal highness was to have 60,000l. a year, but then he supposed that to be 30,000l. additional to the civil list 30,000l. Otherwise 30,000l. a year would be added by a side-wind to the civil list. He considered this as a question of the last importance as it regarded the civil list, and it was highly necessary that the subject should be well understood.

felt no difficulty in stating, that the sum of 60,000l. would cover her royal highness's whole expenditure; the 30,000l. in the civil list, would, of course, be devoted to meet any excess in that department.

repeated his former question, and observed, that if the amount of the civil list were inadequate to the charges it bore, parliament would be applied to for the deficiency. If the civil list required an addition, let it be fairly and openly applied for; let it not be done by a side wind [Hear!]. It was with the greatest difficulty he brought himself to say a word on this subject, lest he should be misrepresented by any whisper of his being wanting in respect to the illustrious person in question, or in concurring in that universal homage which he, in common with that House and the country, was eager to pay to the auspicious match connected with this consideration. But it was for the House to take care that in giving 60,000l. annually to her royal highness, they were not also giving 30,000l. a year to the civil list.

entered into some explanations, to show that the additional grant to the civil list, on account of the princess Charlotte's separate establishment, as it now existed, was only 6,000l. and not 30,000l. [No, no!].

repeated, that the impression was, that the grant from the civil list, would cease after passing this act; and of course would no longer be a public charge.

conceived that his own statement now appeared right: 30,000l, a year, in one way or other, it was said, had been paid for her royal highness from the privy purse and the civil list. Taking the establishment at 60,000l. a year, certainly many gentlemen supposed it to be only an addition of 30,000l. a year to the public for the establishment of the princess Charlotte and the prince of Cobourg.

thought it followed of course, that there would be the addition mentioned to the civil list.

said, the bill only pledged parliament to provide the 60,000l. a year. The 30,000l. ceased as far as it related to the princess, and, if the House chose, might also cease as it regarded the public: but this was not at all the question before the House.

insisted, that this consideration was not necessary. Parliament had granted a certain sum for the civil list, on which there was a charge of 30,000l. a year for the maintenance of the princess Charlotte. That 30,000l. ceased from this day. How did it cease? By parliament granting 30,000l. more, which took that charge away from the list. This was as plain and self-evident as that 30 and 30 made 60. But by granting 60,000l. without an understanding or proposition for this reduction, we were in fact granting 30,000 more to the civil list.

thought the House ought to confine itself to what was immediately before it. By voting the 60,000l. he could not see how the House was pledged to give the 30,000l. to the civil list.

thought it was due to the dignity of the House for the right hon. gentleman to have been in his place on this occasion [Neither the chancellor of the exchequer nor lord Castlereagh had yet come down]. He had listened for a long while to the hon. gentleman opposite, in hopes of some explanation from him; but he had left him more puzzled than when he began his observations. The question was quite clear. It was, whether this marriage was to cost the public 60,000l. a year, or 30,000l. additional? We were going to vote 60,000l., which would be 30,000l. additional. The hon. gentleman said, the 30,000l. reverted to the civil list. The committee knew this well enough; but he would say, that instead of reverting to the civil list, it ought to revert to the public. The House was not to be put off by what the hon. gentleman had said about future discussion; now was the time to discuss the subject. An hon. gentleman had attempted to set the committee right, by saying that the proportion of 6000l. and upwards, would revert to the public; but this was only one-fifth of what they ought to regain, as could clearly be proved [Here lord Castlereagh entered the House]. He was sorry the noble lord opposite was not in the House at the commencement of the discussion, as he might have thrown some light upon the subject. He would repeat, in a few words, for his information, what had occurred. We were about to make a grant of 60,000l., by which 30,000l. became no longer a charge on the civil list. The question was, what was to become of this 30,000l.? How was its reversion to be left at liberty, to be secured to the public?

said, that in providing the means for the establishment of her royal highness, various expenses had been necessarily incurred in different departments of the household, which would now be relieved from that extraordinary charge. The whole amount of these might have been from 22 to 23,000l. a year; but the change that would now take place, was not such an augmentation of the civil list as could require the interference of parliament. The civil list had evidently been considered for some years past as inadequate to its objects; but all interference on this subject had been abstained from during a time of war, because it found relief from droits of admiralty and other sources. The effect of the present bill would be to relieve the different household departments. The general affairs of the civil list would come under discussion in the course of the present session, when parliament would have time to consider them.

observed, that the noble lord had stated pretty roundly, that the civil list was not adequate to the expenses. But he would ask the noble lord, if, in these times of distress and misery, the Prince Regent, if he wished to hold a place in the hearts of his people, could come to the House and ask for an increase in the civil list? [Hear, hear!] In fact, no man who really wished that the royal family should stand in the hearts of the people, could feel any other sensation than that of deep regret, that there should, at such a time, be any arrears of the civil list. Even admitting that only 6000l. ought to revert to the public, to overlook this would be most censurable. We had been told of the great retrenchments that had been made in the public expenditure; but no credit was due to ministers on this account; they had only performed a part of their duty, which circumstances rendered imperiously necessary. Did these retrenchments altogether bear any proportion to the amount of the distresses of the country, or were they in any proportion to what must absolutely be made, if the country was to be saved from bankruptcy? If it was to be saved, it must be by the retrenchment of millions. He hoped the hon. and learned gentleman who had made the observations which had led to this discussion, would persevere; for such proceedings as he had witnessed were a total abandonment of that system of economy which had been held out in the speech from the throne.

declared, that if he had thought his right hon. friend, the chancellor of the exchequer, would have arrived in time to participate in the discussion, he should not have had the presumption to say a word upon the subject. But it was necessary that the bill should pass; and he could not conceive the House to be pledged in any respect as to the 30,000l. when the civil list came hereafter under consideration.

thought this bill ought not to have been moved in the absence of the right hon. gentleman [The chancellor of the exchequer at this time entered the House]. The only charge that was recognized was that of 6500l. on the civil list, and it would be well to see that in this bill that sum were deducted.

said, that the bill provided for the deduction of that sum, and moved that one of the clauses be read.

contended that this sum signified nothing. It only made it appear that there was 23,500l. instead of 30,000l., which was not to cease, and the question was, what was to become of the remainder? The subject stood just as it was, only that we found we were now granting 23,500l. to the civil list, instead of 30,000l.

said, that not having heard the whole of the discussion, he was not quite sure that he understood the subject. The arrangement stated by him was, that his royal highness should receive the 60,000l. in lieu of every allowance whatever, as an annual income, from the consolidated fund.—Her royal highness receiving this sum, and having an entire, an exclusive establishment of her own, a saving would necessarily be effected in the civil list, to the amount of nearly 23,500l. There would be a saving in the several departments of the household and the master of the horse, in consequence of this new establishment, which was formerly charged upon the civil list, which would undoubtedly be relieved from any excess of expense on her royal highness's account. The saving effected, on the income hitherto appropriated to the Princess, would thus be about 7000l., and in the civil list it would be almost 30,000l., but which made no part of the estimates laid before the House in the present year

observed, that by the estimates before the committee, the lord steward's department was to be charged 12,000l., and the master of the horse 10,000l., making the estimates to go only to 22,000l. in the whole, and that the balance of the 30,000l. was to be defrayed from the consolidated fund. He did not like the idea of going to the consolidated fund, as sums once put on it, were not so easily got off again. He thought, in conformity to old established customs, which by-the-bye, would now be treated as exploded, that that sum should still remain on the civil list, and then be paid to the consolidated fund, as had been done in the case of the princess of Wales. With respect to Camelford House, he wished to know whether the rent of that House was to be paid out of this grant, or was to be a separate charge? [Yes, from lord Castlereagh] Her royal highness was certainly worthy of a high establishment, as heir apparent to the throne, and he did not think the place chosen for her residence was at all suitable to her dignity. He objected to her being kept thus in a private situation, and on that account thought her allowance of 60,000l. was too great. It was right she should have an adequate allowance, corresponding to her dignity, but when she was to be kept as a private person, he thought the proposed sum too large [Hear!]. As heir apparent to the throne, it was proper she should hold drawing rooms, for the purpose of meeting with her subjects, over whom she was destined to reign, and he deprecated the conduct of ministers in keeping her in a private rank. He had suggested the propriety of granting her the ordnance office as a very proper town residence. The House now selected for her residence, was extremely inadequate, and really to small, and he on that account considered 60,000l. a too great allowance to her while she inhabited such a place. He knew very well this would give offence to some persons, and that he should be termed niggardly. But he wished ministers to inform the committee, whether it was intended to allow her to hold drawing rooms [The righ hon. member supposing a motion of dissent was made by ministers proceeded]. He certainly thought ministers had brought their master into a very fine situation by the humiliating manner in which they pro-posed to use his royal daughter [Hear!]. Her royal highness was the heir apparent to the throne, and no person could question her right of succession to it, yet with an inconsistency altogether unaccountable, she was to be kept aloof from all the distinctions of royalty [Hear!]. The noble lord in his usual manner, would probably give no satisfactory answer to the committee why this was done. The best way the committee in that case could do, was to give him no money. It was as easy for them to hold their purse, as it was for him to hold his tongue [A laugh]. He deprecated the privacy to which her royal highness seemed doomed, and considered it inconsistent with every principle of the constitution [Hear, hear!].

was astonished at the manner in which the right hon. gentleman had conducted himself. He went on in a fine manner, putting questions, looking to the countenance of those opposite to him, and supposing he had been answered. On these supposed answers, he dwelt with his usual vehemence, quite in a dramatic style, telling the committee, if he got no answer he would give no money. However congenial that mode might be to the feelings of the right hon. gentleman, he (lord C.) declined acting any part in the comedy. But he asked the committee, whether it was consistent with their dignity, after having once granted a sum, and gone to the foot of the throne with the warmest assurances of their support, now to retrench the provision they had granted? He need scarcely put this question, as he knew no man in the committee would be guilty of such inconsistency [Hear!].—His right hon. friend (the chancellor of the exchequer), had stated to the committee, that 60,000l. a-year was all he was authorized to ask, and that a proposition would hereafter be laid before them for providing a suitable mansion for the residence of the illustrious individuals. Her royal highness, and her intended consort, had expressed their intention to pay for the town residence, and if any provision for a mansion was made by the House, they would rather have that in the country. He (lord C.) had no instruction to give any communication to the House, respecting what would be the situation of the illustrious individuals after marriage, and he deprecated the conduct of the right hon. gentleman, as savouring too much of a disposition he always had of making insinuations.

was not surprised at the last words of the noble lord's speech. He had asked a simple question, and had been charged by the noble lord with acting a dramatical part. But he repeated what he had formerly said, namely, that the noble lord had not done his duty as he ought to have done. There was a kind of quibbling peculiar to ministers, which the committee could not but remark. If the question which was put to them was suited to their inclinations, then an immediate answer was given; but if it was not congenial, they then either held their peace, or poured a torrent of illiberal abuse on members opposite. But he would tell the noble lord, that any idea of a country house was not to be entertained while we had so many palaces. He warned the country against the designs of the noble lord, which were a monstrous insult to their feelings. It was really very amusing to hear ministers say, that they could not find a palace in good order enough for their royal highnesses, and that therefore a new mansion must be provided [Hear!]. What was become of the expensive cottage at Windsor? Was it already out of repair? Could Cranbourne Lodge not be fitted up? He was ashamed to go over the number of palaces we had in this country, and to hear the noble lord have the presumption to say, that a new and better accommodation than they can furnish must be had. Had the noble lord no regard whatever for the feelings of the country? Did he suppose that the public were no longer awake to any hardship imposed on them, and that they had totally lost every kind of sensibility? No man was more willing than himself to grant every provision which was requisite for the comfort and happiness of the royal family. His anxiety on this occasion led him decidedly to condemn the privacy to which her royal highness was doomed. But the more he examined the state of public matters, the more he was convinced of the truth of the old proverb, "the more money, the less show." Drawing-rooms and public court days had become now very rare, notwithstanding the immense sums devoted to the expenses of the court. He condemned the proposal of ministers for a country residence, as most indecent; and while he professed the most profound respect for her royal highness, he considered the house which had been chosen for her residence was ill-suited to her dignity, and that she was now to be reduced to a rank inconsistent with the views of the heir presumptive to the throne.

declared, that since that House had met as a house of parliament, both the House and the country had never been so directly insulted as they had just been by the noble lord. The marriage of her royal highness the princess Charlotte being about to take place, parliament were called upon to make a provision for her royal highness, in her new situation. Legally speaking, her royal highness was certainly only heiress presumptive to the throne. But it was unnecessary to state, the various circumstances, some of them dependent on acts of the legislature, which gave to the rank of her royal highness in the state a very different character. Then, when the noble lord was asked in what way her royal highness was henceforward to be considered—whether she was to conduct herself as a private individual, or as heiress presumptive to the throne, he told the House, that they had no business to inquire about the matter. But that House had an unquestionable right to inquire into, and to be told every thing relating to it. And when the noble lord asked them for 60,000l. a year, as an establishment for her royal highness, without being prepared, or refusing to give an answer to the questions which had been put to him, with respect to the state which her royal highness was to maintain, he insulted the House and the country. If her royal highness was not to be considered as heiress presumptive, why was she to have more than any younger son of the King? If she was to live in privacy, why was the establishment for her royal highness and the prince of Cobourg, to be larger than that for the duke and duchess of Cumberland? It was a new doctrine, that such an inquiry as that had been made, was an improper interference with the private and domestic life of a member of the royal family.

really submitted it to the judgment of the committee, whether it was possible for him to give the information required of him. All that he could say on the subject was, that her royal highness the princess Charlotte stood in the situation in which the law had placed her, and that whatever sum the liberality of parliament chose to bestow upon her, was in her royal highness's hands to dispose of at her own discretion.

, in reply to the statement of the noble lord, that her royal highness stood in the situation in which the law had placed her, asked why it was proposed to give her royal highness 60,000l. instead of 20,000l. a year, unless her royal highness was in a very different situation in fact from what she was in law? On any other ground it would be preposterous to treat her royal highness so differently from the other branches of her illustrious family. It was in vain to disguise the circumstance, but the House well knew that it was more than a thousand to one that her royal highness would succeed to the Crown, and therefore that in point of substance and fact she was as much to be considered heiress apparent to the crown of these realms, as if she were so in law. There could be no other pretence for coming to parliament for a splendid, though not too splendid, establishment for her royal highness. He again and again repeated, that he had no wish to impede the measure before the House, or to throw the slightest obstacle in the way of that most happy and auspicious matrimonial union, which had his hearty approbation and concurrence. But the House would be guilty of a dereliction of duty, were they to vote the money of the country, without ascertaining that the interests of the country were to be consulted in its expenditure. The noble lord had said, that he did not know whether her royal highness intended to hold a court or not. But did the noble lord mean to say, that if he were to put that question in another quarter, he would not obtain a satisfactory answer? To him it was perfectly evident, that if her royal highness was to hold a court, as she ought to do, for the reception of the subjects over whom she was destined one day to rule, the arrangements would not have been made which had been made respecting Camelford house. He wished to speak with the greatest respect of that house [a laugh], but although it was a residence highly fitting the noble person who was going out of it, it was by no means a palace fit for the residence of the heiress of the British crown. A lease had been obtained of this house for seven years, at a rent of 2,500l. a year. It was quite clear, that in that house her royal highness could hold no court, but must reside as a private member of the royal family. It appeared very extraordinary to him, but it was now discovered, that the expenses of her royal highness's present establishment, which was of a most private nature, which was attended with less pomp and show than any other of the royal establishments, with less pomp and show than nine out of ten of the establishments of the nobility—and he was afraid with less convenience than ninety-nine out of a hundred of the latter. It now appeared that this establishment, so private, so devoid of pomp and show and convenience, had cost 37,000l. a year; for it was stated, that besides the 30,000l. paid for it out of the civil list, 7,000l. more came from the consolidated fund: 60,000l. was talked of for an establishment that should have somewhat ostensible, somewhat of splendour about it. Why, twice 60,000l. would not be enough on that scale. It was a perfect joke to propose such a thing. Things, indeed, must be much cheaper even than they were to permit it. Unless the grossest extravagance and waste had prevailed in that branch of the civil list, he meant the existing establishment of her royal highness, an extravagance and waste that outdid all the outdoings in the other branches of it, the proposal of 60,000l. for her royal highness's future establishment, under circumstances of so very different a nature, was utterly inadequate. Feeling so strongly as he did on this subject, however painful the duty, and however unwilling he was to throw the slightest difficulty in the way of the arrangement which had taken place, or to interfere at all in a matter of so delicate a nature, he should certainly take the sense of the House on the question that the chairman should report progress, in order that the committee might better understand the subject when it next came before them, and that the noble lord might make such inquiries in the proper quarter, as would enable him to give them the information which it was, in his opinion, so indispensable to obtain.

The Amendment proposed by Mr. Brougham, having been read by the chairman,

said, that as the House had unanimously voted the sum of 60,000l. for the annual establishment of her royal highness the princess Charlotte, he thought the country had a right to expect that every sixpence now paid for her royal highness's establishment from the civil list and consolidated fund, should be cleared off. Whether or not this was the case, the House and the public had a right to know. As to the way in which the money was to be expended, although a certain degree of splendour appeared to be a matter of fair expectation, yet he conceived that it must be entirely at her royal highness's own discretion and option, whether or not to hold a court.

, in reply to the first part of the hon. member's observations, said that his right hon. friend, when he had made the original proposition, which was the foundation of the bill before the committee, distinctly stated that the 60,000l. to be granted to her royal highness, was in lieu of all other grants from what quarter soever proceeding.

wished to know, whether he was nevertheless to understand that the charges were to remain on the civil list?

. Clearly.

Then I shall certainly vote for the hon. and learned gentleman's amendment.

said, that the hon. gentleman must misunderstand him. None of the existing charges on the consolidated fund or civil list would accrue to her royal highness after her marriage, but only the precise income which the present bill went to secure to her.

asked, if those charges would be saved to the public?

replied, that that part of her royal highness's present income which arose out of the consolidated fund would revert to that fund—that part which proceeded from the civil list would be employed in the public service. In allusion to a statement from an hon. and learned gentleman, with respect to the expense of her royal highness's existing establishment, he thought it would not be considered extravagant, when it was considered that all persons in attendance on her royal highness were paid out of it—her ladies, her equerries, her masters for the various branches of education, &c.

recalled the question to the attention of the committee. The bill before them granted 60,000l. a year to the princess Charlotte. The 7,000l. now paid to her royal highness out of the consolidated fund would of course merge in that sum. But the 23,000l. now paid out of the civil list, although not henceforward to be given to her royal highness, would continue a charge on the public purse. The bill, therefore, added 23,000l. a year to the civil list. Now this was a subject which ought to be separately and distinctly discussed. If the addition was actually necessary, let the proposition be brought before parliament, but let it not be mingled with the question now before the committee.

felt the utmost reluctance to obstruct the progress of the bill. The grant of 60,000l. to her royal highness was made unanimously, but it was not intended indirectly to vote 23,000l. annually to the civil list. He was persuaded that the nation was as unanimous in reprobating the excesses of the civil list as parliament had been in voting the proposed establishment to her royal highness the princess Charlotte.

thought that provision might be made in the bill, to prevent the 23,000l. from remaining a part of the civil list.

regretted that a necessity existed for any discussion calculated to disturb the unanimity which it was so desirable to manifest on the present occasion. But in what confidence did the House of Commons vote the address by which they granted 60,000l. a year to her royal highness the princess Charlotte? In the confidence that her royal highness was to fill the situation of heir apparent to the throne. It was only in that confidence that parliament had been justified to their constituents in making a provision for her royal highness, which, though not too much in that case, would be too much in any other. The noble lord said, that this would be for the private consideration of her royal highness. It was a public concern. If that House granted public money, they could grant it only for public purposes. Those to whom it was granted ought to support the state which became them. All who wished that the dignity and honour of the royal family should be maintained, were interested in declaring, that this 60,000l. ought not to be spent privately, but ought to be devoted to the support of that state which it would be proper for her royal highness to assume. If by this bill 23,000l. was to be deducted from the charges of the civil list, leaving that sum to be applied to other purposes, then it was fitting that the country should be told, that half the proposed grant was for her royal highness the princess Charlotte, and the other half for his royal highness the Prince Regent. Adverting to the statement made by the noble lord, of the expenses attendant on her royal highness's existing establishment, he observed, that he had always understood the ladies in attendance on her royal highness had no salaries; which must be a mistake, as the noble lord had characterised those salaries as forming a material item of her royal highness's expenditure.

allowed that the present bill would relieve the civil list to the amount stated. By the act of the 53d George 3d, parliament had, on the average of several years, recognised the annual deficiency of the civil list as 124,000l. Therefore although the civil list would be relieved to the amount of 6000l., a deficiency would still be left of 118,000l.

amendment was negatived without a division. The bill then went through the committee, and the report was received. On the question that the bill be read a third time,

asked the noble lord, whether, when the electorate of Hanover was raised to the rank of a kingdom, any alteration had been made in the succession? The House was aware that females were excluded from succeeding to the electorate.

replied, that no alteration had been made on that subject.

The bill was then read a third time and passed.

moved for leave to bring in a bill "to amend the acts passed in the parliament of England in the reign of William and Mary, and in the parliament of Ireland, during the reign of queen Anne, to protect creditors from fraudulent devises."—Leave granted.

then rose to move for leave to bring in a bill "for the public registering of all conveyances, wills, and incumbrances that shall be made of, or that may affect any honors, manors, lands, tenements, or hereditaments, within the several counties of England and Wales, except the counties of Middlesex and York." The advantage of the system of registry was well known from the instances of Yorkshire and Middlesex, where it now prevailed. The first place where it was adopted was the West Riding of Yorkshire and the two other Ridings of that county, and the county of Middlesex had been so convinced of the utility of the system, that they had obtained the same benefit by special acts. His object now was to extend the system to the whole kingdom. The system which he should attempt to introduce would not allow an impertinent curiosity to be satisfied by an inspection of the deeds themselves. The dates of the deeds, the uses, the names of the witnesses, and the places where they were deposited only would be registered. It would thus be in the power of a purchaser to demand the inspection of the deeds respecting the property, before he completed the purchase, and he would be enabled to ascertain whether all those deeds had been exhibited to him. The measure which he proposed would diminish the number of suits, secure titles, and render it more easy to raise money on mortgage; for it was well known that in York and Middlesex money was more easily raised in this manner than in other counties. He concluded by moving for leave to bring in his bill.

stated the registry law of Ireland to have proved most beneficial to that country. The hon. and learned gentleman, therefore, had not only the experience of the counties of Middlesex and York in favour of his proposition, but that of the whole country of Ireland. Than such a measure as this he knew of nothing more necessary in a country so far advanced in civilization as England. Nothing could open a wider door to fraud than the secrecy with which it had been common to conclude transfers and mortgages of property in our time. Formerly they were more public, and the form of the document anciently in common use, which began with the words, "Know all men," proved it was not always thought necessary that such transactions should be secret. He objected to the clause which the bill was to contain for making wills public.

declared himself decidedly hostile to the measure, and did not consider the argument drawn from the operation of such a law in Ireland to be applicable to the state of this country. He should always object to a system which enabled extravagant sons to gratify their curiosity on the subject of the property to which they might be heirs. The registry in Yorkshire appeared to him in the light of a complete nuisance, because, from its extent and multiplicity, it was impossible for any purchaser to derive satisfactory information from it. He felt persuaded that the effect of this measure, if it should pass into a law, although it might be productive of some convenience at first, would in the course of 30 years throw all the titles in the kingdom into confusion. The proposition of the learned serjeant was likewise open to other objections, inasmuch as it left it to the option of the counties whether they would have the registry or not. The enactment, if it should be adopted, ought to be universal, or we should speedily have a different law in every different county.

was astonished to hear the observations which had been urged by the hon. and learned gentleman who had just sat down, against an honest, fair bill, brought in to protect the property of the country. The most beneficial effects had been experienced from the registry law of Ireland. He was confident such a measure would be not less advantageous to England. Had such a law been in force, many fatal consequences which had occurred would have been prevented. In one instance which had come to his knowledge, a gentleman carrying the whole of his title deeds with him from his attorney, had in his hurry left them in a hackney-coach. The coachman drove off, and on finding a parcel left behind had opened it, in the hope of finding something immediately negociable. Disappointed in this, and vexed at the parcel containing no Bank paper, he had destroyed all the writings. A family had thus been ruined, which would have been saved from such a calamity, had registries been established in England as they were in Ireland. He did not conceive any serious inconvenience could arise from the bill now proposed to be brought in. No person acting an honest part, could with reason feel ashamed of the arrangements he might deem it necessary to make with his own property, and the arrangement which would now be made, would effectually prevent many from being plundered who would else be cheated out of their money.

observed, that the question upon the registry of wills was but a subordinate part of the measure, which would be most advantageously discussed in the committee. It had been said by an hon. and learned gentleman (Mr. Preston), that the bill would cause confusion: to this he should only answer, that its object was to prevent it, and that he knew nothing which should impede the accomplishment of this object. In one point of view, indeed, it might operate personally with regard to the hon. and learned gentleman, for he believed it would have a great tendency to lessen his professional avocations. It gave him pleasure, however, to reflect that the hon. and learned gentleman would thus be enabled to devote a greater portion of his time to those studies upon agriculture and the commutation of tithes, which he had so often detailed to an admiring and attentive House [A laugh].

The bill was then brought in and read a first time.

moved the order of the day for the House resolving itself into a committee, to take into further consideration the agricultural distresses of the country. On account of the thin attendance he did not feel himself disposed to urge that the House should go into the committee that evening. Unless the business of the House would permit them to go into a full consideration of the subject at this time, the discussion would hardly be attended with advantage to the country. Knowing that there was a pressure of business that night, and that there was not that disposition in the House which could allow him to expect they would devote their full attention to a subject of such paramount importance, he should throw himself on their determination whether he ought to proceed in moving the committee, or postpone the consideration of the question till after the recess. He should have hoped certainly, that the House would have given the most persevering attention to the consideration of this subject; but whether from the pressure of business, or from whatever other cause, the House had not given that attention to it which he could have wished.

appealed to the House, if either his colleagues or himself had ever absented themselves on any occasion when this question came forward. He hoped the late pressure of business might account in part for the inadequate attendance at present; but he also hoped, that so much had already been done in the spirit of the measures suggested by the hon. gentleman, that the anxiety of the members was on that account considerably abated as to the result. He thought it would be advisable to keep the committee alive, in order that after the holidays they might again give their attention to the question.

thought it desirable that the subject should be postponed, in the then state of the House. After the holidays, he hoped ministers would be prepared to come forward with some practical plan of their own, for the relief of the distress complained of. This they ought to have taken upon themselves to do before. From the information they had, they might be able to do this better than a committee. It was most important that something should be done. It was important, not merely to the individuals whose distress was now the subject of regret, but to the whole landed interest.

concurred with the last speaker, in the view which he took of the importance of this subject. After the recess, they would come to it with a knowledge of the effect produced by what had already been done.

thought, if the general question were postponed till after the recess, that it would be well to appoint a committee to investigate the question on wool and seeds. He was of opinion, this would be of great service to enable them to view the subject in all its bearings.

had no objection to the committee proposed being now appointed, but he wished to state the impression on his mind to be at present against imposing any protecting duties on the importation of wool and seeds. Our manufacturers had heretofore been perhaps protected by duties, more than they ought to have been even for their own interest. This system pursued, would have forced all the capital into the hands of the manufacturing interest, to the ruin of the agricultural interest. It was proper to take a middle course, and to let the capital take its proper destination equally between them. On this principle he had supported the corn bill. Having done this, he had thought it right to give moderate encouragement to the manufacturers of cheese and butter, as it certainly could not be for the interest of the country, that by favouring the growth of corn alone, the farmer should be tempted to break up ground for the culture of it, which might, be better fitted to produce other commodities. Though disposed thus to give every reasonable protection to the agricultural interest, he was not willing to lay duties on the importation of articles which entered largely into our manufactures. Considerations thus might arise on the question respecting the importation of wool and seeds, which might overpower those suggested by the claims set up for the agricultural interest. He wished to act fairly between the manufacturing and the landed interests, and to guard against one gaining a monopoly over the other.

approved of the postponement, and the appointment of a committee up stairs.

congratulated the House and the country on the sentiments which had just fallen from the noble lord. The agriculturists wished merely to be put on a footing with the other classes of the community. He thought it advisable that the question should be postponed till after the recess, in order that it should receive the fullest discussion.

disapproved of the postponement of the question. The House was usually thin about the present period of the evening, and he had no doubt that many members would soon come down, who were desirous of taking a part in the discussion. He was desirous of putting two questions to the chancellor of the exchequer on the subject of the income tax: first, What were the intentions of his majesty's ministers with respect to the half of the tax due on the 5th instant, and which was generally payable in July? If it was the intention of his majesty's ministers, had the tax been carried, to grant a considerable delay, he saw no reason for not still giving such indulgence. The second question had a reference to the minute of the treasury, directing a deduction in cases where rents had been reduced prior to Lady-day 1815. Many persons had reduced the rents for the period from Lady-day 1815 long after that term; many persons had reduced them only for the period from Michaelmas 1815 to Lady-day 1816; and many persons still intended to make similar reductions. Was no reduction but what had been made previous to Lady-day 1815, to be entitled to any deductions

said, he should merely give a general answer, as these subjects would soon be brought by him before the House. It was his intention to propose some additional indulgence with respect to the payment of the last half year of the property tax. Where rents had been reduced for only a part of the period from Lady-day 1815 to Lady-day 1816, he certainly had not at present any intention of proposing any abatement of the tax: the making allowance in cases of posterior reductions, would be attended with considerable difficulty, and he therefore did not wish to throw out any hopes on this subject.

, and was proceeding to address the House, when Mr. Huskisson spoke to order, there being no question before it. Mr. Western raised a question, by moving that the Speaker do leave the chair.

expressed his disappointment at the inclination for postponement which seemed to be manifested. He had all along understood that the House was to proceed with as little delay as possible in the discussion of a subject the most important that could occupy its attention. He himself had come down that night with the intention of delivering his sentiments upon it—which no doubt was the intention, of other gentlemen also; and he had last night postponed the motion of which he had given notice, expressly from the consideration that this subject, of all others the most interesting to the country, demanded the preference. He trusted that the special inquiries which it had been proposed to make into the questions of wool and seeds, would not have the effect of cutting down the general inquiry into the state of the nation in regard to its agricultural concerns.

protested, that he had no intention to lessen the importance of the general inquiry by suggesting the idea of special committees on the topics of wool and seeds. His reason for that suggestion was merely this, that, connected as these topics were with the great staple manufacture of the country, it was absolutely necessary that the House should obtain from the manufacturers on the one hand, and the wool growers on the other, that information which could alone enable them to legislate beneficially.

coincided with his right hon. friend, that the questions with regard to wool and seeds must necessarily be referred to committees up stairs. He thought it would be better to postpone proceeding in the general discussion till after the holydays, though he was far from wishing that the House should wait until these committees gave in their reports.

thought that he had only coincided with what appeared to be the general sense of the House that some delay should take place; but if any circumstances should induce the hon. member (Mr. Western) to alter his wish, he, for one, should not oppose it.

thought, that if the only question was as to wool and seeds, there was no doubt that these would be best referred to committees. But it was not one branch only, but the general distress of the agricultural interest, which was the subject before them; and upon this the whole country were looking with anxiety to the views of that House and of ministers. His objection to delay was the disappointment which it would generally create. If the business went over till after Easter, the general feeling among the farmers would be, that they had to look to nothing further from the legislature. Undoubtedly, since the last occasion when he delivered his opinion to the House on this subject, the price of wheat, and of most other grain, had risen in all parts of the country. This was to him a cheering consideration; but he much feared that the manufacturers would be more likely to suffer now than the agriculturists. Ministers, in order to entitle themselves to the confidence of the country, must extend their retrenchments much further than they had done. It was not the retrenchment of small sums, but of millions, that could alone save the country. He should regret extremely if the House did not now go into the committee, because it would operate as a disappointment to the public.

coincided very much with the hon. member who spoke last. He should regret if an impression went abroad, that the House was not sufficiently alive to the distresses of the country. The hon. member had mentioned another circumstance which he said cheered him—namely, the rise in the prices of grain. This, however, might not prove a subject of congratulation, if it should turn out to be the fact, that every species of produce had been forced by the distress of the farmer too early into the market, and thus extreme cheapness had produced untimely waste. He doubted whether any gentleman had made up his mind as to the mode in which the legislature should interfere; but this was only an additional reason for continuing the discussion.

said, he was not anxious that the committee should be postponed if the House were disposed to enter into it. He was anxious it should be remarked, that the delay which had occurred in prosecuting this inquiry could not be justly imputed to him. He had wished it to be commenced early in the session, and had given notice of his motion in the very first week after it opened. Various circumstances had caused the investigation called for to be put off from time to time, till at length the holidays were so near at hand, that he had thought it might be most agreeable to the House that it should be postponed till after the recess. He should be glad to go into the committee if the House were so disposed, as he wished the most prompt measures to be adopted for the relief of the agricultural part of the community, and those to go to the full extent of the power of the legislature.

moved, that the adjourned debate should be now resumed. He considered the question of the most vital importance, and was therefore anxious that it should not be postponed.

The question that the Speaker should leave the chair was then put and carried, and the House resolved itself into the committee. The first resolution having been read.

rose and said:^*—Mr. Brogden; I feel very sensibly the disadvantages under which I rise to enter upon the discussion of this momentous subject; not only because I am in all respects so ill qualified to handle it successfully, but because a pretty general indisposition has been expressed by the House, to proceeding in the inquiry this night. Nevertheless, as I was one of those who objected to delay, and as I stated my readiness to go on with the debate, I am desirous of delivering my sentiments, such as they are, upon the present occasion, that I may lay before the committee the ideas (whatever they may be worth) which I have gathered from an honest and patient attention to the subject matter of our investigation.

There is one branch of the argument which I shall pass over altogether, I mean the amount of the distresses which are now universally admitted to prevail over almost every part of the empire. Upon this topic all men are agreed; the statements connected with it are as unquestionable as they are afflicting; each day's experience since my hon. friend's motion (Mr. Western) has added to their number and increased their force; and the petition from Cambridgeshire presented at an early part of this evening has laid before you a fact, to which all the former expositions of distress afforded no parallel, that in one parish, every proprietor and tenant being ruined with a single exception, the whole poor rates of the parish thus wholly inhabited by paupers, are now paid by an individual, whose fortune once ample, is thus swept entirely away. Of the nature and extent of the evil, then, it is quite superfluous to speak; I purpose with your permission, to apply myself to the examination of its causes, and to such a view of the remedies or palliatives proposed, as may naturally be suggested by a consideration of those causes. Without entering somewhat at large into the origin of our present difficulties, I am afraid we shall be apt to go astray in our search after the means of relief.

^* From the original edition printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown. Paternoster-row.

A circumstance which must strike every observer who turns his attention toward this state of the country, is the comparative state of prices before and since the late war. In 1792 the average price of wheat was 47s. the quarter; now its price is 57s., almost 20 per cent. higher; and yet no complaint was ever heard of low prices before the war, nor were any of those signs of distress to be perceived which in these times claim our pity in every part of the empire. This consideration is of itself sufficient to show that over-trading—that excess of cultivation is not the only cause of the evil we complain of; and may warn us against the error of imputing it to the operation of any one cause alone; for I am certainly disposed to rank the great extension of cultivation among the principal causes, or at least to regard it as lying near the foundation of the mischief. In attempting to unravel the difficulties of this question, I trust the committee will believe me, when I say that I approach it as I should the solution of a problem in the mathematics, without the smallest taint of party feeling, and with no other view whatsoever than a desire to discover the truth, upon a question of great and universal concernment.

The first circumstance to which I would solicit the attention of the committee, as lying at the root of the matter, is the progress of agriculture during the long period of the last war—I mean from the year 1792 downwards. The commencement of hostilities in 1793 produced the stagnation of trade and manufactures which usually accompanies a transition from peace to war; but these difficulties were of uncommonly short duration, and the brilliant success of our arms at sea, the capture of some of the enemy's colonies, the revolt of others and the crippled state of his mercantile resources at home from internal confusion, speedily diminished his commerce in an extraordinary degree, augmenting our own in nearly the same proportion. As his conquests or influence extended over other nations possessed of trade or colonial establishments, these in their turn became exposed to our maritime hostility, and lost their commerce and their plantations; so that in a very short time this country obtained a mercantile and colonial monopoly altogether unprecedented even in the most successful of her former wars. The consequence was, a sudden extension of our manufacturing industry and wealth; and a proportionate improvement in our agriculture. But although this effect began to be perceivable soon after the first successes of the war, it was not fully produced until a few years had elapsed, and a number of circumstances, in some measure accidental, happened to coincide with those which might more reasonably have been expected to occur during the course of the war, in promoting, I might almost say in forcing, the cultivation of the country. I should be disposed to take the ten years from 1797 to 1808, as the period when all those circumstances, of what nature soever, concurred to produce the same effect. It will be worth the attention of the committee to observe how singularly this period is filled with events, all tending one way, all bearing upon the extension of agriculture.

The French commerce and colonies had been previously destroyed; and in 1797, 1798, and 1799, those of Spain and Holland shared the same fate. About this time our monopoly might be said to have reached its height. But several accidental events now concurred with those results of the war, and influenced the progress of cultivation in a visible manner. The scarcity of wheat in 1796, and all sorts of grain in 1799 and 1800, raised the prices so much as to force a vast portion of land into cultivation. In 1797 and still more after 1800, lands were broken up which had never before known the plough, and many wastes were taken in, the tillage of which prudence would perhaps never have authorized. Somewhat of the same effect was thus pro- duced which arose from the destruction of the principal French West Indian colonies early in the late war. The sudden diminution in the supply of sugar raised its price beyond all example, and occasioned a vast extent of new land to be cleared and planted, promoting at the same time the culture of the old plantations. The African slave trade, and the conquest of the Dutch, French, and Spanish settlements, with the consequent influx of British capital, facilitated the progress of West Indian agriculture, until in the course of a few years the blank created by the commotions at St. Domingo and Guadaloupe was much more than supplied; sugars fell as far below their ordinary price as they had lately risen above it; all West Indian proprietors were distressed, and many utterly ruined; the colonies generally speaking were in a state nearly resembling the most suffering districts of the mother country at the present time; and relief was only afforded by the abandonment of many estates, chiefly such as were loaded with debts and consisted of inferior lands, the supply being thus restored to a level with the demand. I do not mention the cases as in all respects parallel, but they agree in many of their principal circumstances.

Together with the scarcities of 1796 and 1800, the financial and military operations of the war, concurred to raise the prices of agricultural produce. Those operations did not certainly create capital, or multiply the number of mouths for consuming food; but they collected capital in masses to be expended less economically in feeding a number of persons more carelessly than the same individuals would have been supported by part of the same capital, had it been left in the hands of private persons. I desire to be understood as casting no reflection upon the administration of the revenue appropriated to the demands of the war, because it is quite unnecessary at present to express my opinion upon this point. Every one must admit that a given sum in the hands of government, even of the most economical ministers, especially if allotted to meeting the various pressing exigencies of warfare, must be expended with much less care and parsimony than the same sums appropriated to the uses of private families under all the checks imposed by individual prudence. The tendency of such a national expenditure unquestionably is, to raise prices above their natural level for a time at least, and thus to force cultivation forward, although in a long course of years the same capital in the hands of the community would have been much more augmented, and would gradually and healthfully have increased the production of the country in a greater, but not in a disproportionate degree. It is not, however, for its effect in stimulating agriculture than any man will be disposed to quarrel with the war and its expenditure. Had it no other sins to answer for, this might well be forgiven.

While the circumstances which I have mentioned were disposing men to extend the cultivation of the kingdom, an event occurred, which in its consequences mightily facilitated this operation. I allude to the stoppage of the bank of England, in the early part of 1797. The alarm in which that extraordinary measure originated, very speedily subsided; and with the restoration of confidence, came a disposition to accommodate, on the part of bankers and other dealers in money and credit, wholly unexampled. The bank of England soon increased its issues; and the numbers of country banks were every where augmented. In districts where no such establishment had ever before been known, they were to be found actively engaged in discounting and lending—and in issuing their own notes. In places too small to support a bank, there were agents appointed by banks fixed at some distance; or a shopkeeper or tradesman, added to his usual and regular calling, the new employment of cashing bills and passing notes. It is true that the check which had now been removed from the great bank in London, still operated to a certain extent upon the minor dealers in credit, thus scattered over the country; they were obliged to pay if required in bank of England paper, although the issuers of that paper were not compelled to pay in specie. But this was rather a nominal than a real restraint, for if the holders of country bank paper could not obtain gold in exchange, they preferred coarse notes with the names of Mr. or sir John such-a-one, whom they knew, to notes somewhat better engraved, but worth just as little, and with the names of a governor and company and a Mr. Newland, whom they knew nothing about—so that the country banks enjoyed the same facility, with the bank in London, of increasing their issues; and they used it with much less reserve. Hence the unlimited accommodation which they afforded to farmers, and generally to all speculators in land. They assisted all adventurers more or less, but adventurers in land most of all, because they had better security to give, and were supposed to be engaged in a less hazardous line of trade. I must here repeat the remark I made upon the tendency of the war to promote cultivation. If the stoppage of the bank had produced no worse effects than throwing dormant capital into circulation, and affording a stimulus to industry, especially to agriculture, I should have little to say against that measure—nay it might have been rather beneficial than hurtful, at least in this point of view, had the accommodation which it afforded been withdrawn more gradually, and at all events, not at the particular moment, when perhaps the state of things required it to be still further extended.

Another circumstance to which I shall advert, also occurred within the period in question, between 1797 and 1808, I mean the great extension of our colonial possessions. The value of those establishments is, I believe, somewhat under-rated in this country; not that we are slow to parade their importance in several particulars—on the contrary, we are prone to magnify them in our accounts of exports and imports, and of the quantity of tonnage, and number of seamen employed in our trade; but we seldom, if ever, reflect on the vast effects produced by them upon the agriculture of the mother country. In promoting this, their wealth operates both through the channels of commerce, and of remittances, almost as directly as the riches of one district of this island expand themselves over and fertilize another less wealthy territory in its neighbourhood. The conquest and rapid cultivation of the Dutch colonies, to take the most remarkable instance, may be traced in its effects upon many a once barren tract of land in the northern parts of Great Britain, where by the names of the farms and of their occupiers you may be reminded of those lucrative speculations in Surinam, Demerara, and Berbice, to which the agriculture of the mother country owed these accessions.

The last circumstance I shall mention as falling within the same period, is the completion of our commercial and manufacturing monopoly, by the destruction of almost all other trade and peaceful industry, the final result of Buonaparté's continental and military system. In the end, indeed, we felt the effects of this prodigious attempt, as I shall presently have occasion to state; but for some time it only consummated the ruin of our competitors, and gave new resources to our seaport and manufacturing towns. The effects of this increase upon the industry of the country, at a period when men were singularly prone to farming speculations, cannot easily be over-rated. We are apt to suppose the sphere of such influence much more contracted than it really is. If any one is desirous of perceiving how widely it extends, I think I can furnish him with a medium through which he may view it. When the measures of the enemy, which began with the Berlin and Milan decrees, had, through the co-operation of our own orders in council, succeeded in crippling the trade of almost all our great towns, the distresses of the merchant and manufacturer affected not merely the farmer in his neighbourhood, but lowered the cattle and corn markets to a great distance, so that fat beasts were sold at very low prices, 100 and even 150 miles from the manufacturing districts in Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire, in consequence of the distresses prevailing over those parts of the country. In like manner, it is evident that the earlier events of the war, which suddenly promoted the wealth of the great towns, tended as rapidly to augment the cultivation of even the remote provinces.

Now, Sir, having ascertained the existence of so many and such powerful causes, uniting their forces in one direction, during the period I have mentioned, and all tending manifestly to promote the agriculture of the country, some of them by tempting men to embark in farming concerns, others by furnishing them with the means of speculation, even if we do not take into the account such circumstances as the general progress of the arts and the depreciation in the value of the circulating medium, and the consequent rise in the money price of produce, which I am very far from under-rating, but only pass over for the present as operating less exclusively upon the cultivation of land than the other circumstances which I have enumerated, I say even if these considerations are omitted, enough has been shown to prove that a start must have been made in the productive powers of this island, quite unexampled in any equal period of its formar history. When, on the other hand, I reflect upon the nature of the causes which I have enumerated, and find that most of them are of sudden occurrence, and that their combination in the short space of about ten years was accidental; when, moreover, I perceive that the most material of them were of a temporary duration, and could not remain long to support the great cultivation which they had occasioned, I am disposed to think that I have got hold of a principle upon which something like an overtrading in agriculture, and a consequent redundance of produce, may be inferred to have happened, how difficult soever it may be to ascertain the amount of this excess by any strict calculation. In truth I am little inclined to resort to estimates upon the present question; where circumstances are clearly proved to have existed, the natural operation of which plainly was such as I have described, it is unnecessary to seek among statistical returns for evidence of effects which we know must have been produced. I have heard of conjectures as to the number of acres inclosed, during the ten years I am referring to, in which there may have been 1200 inclosure bills passed. Some of my hon. friends near me, I know, have estimated this amount at two millions, which I mention not so much from any reliance upon the accuracy of the statement, as out of respect for them, and because this admission is at variance with their own doctrine that there has been no excessive cultivation. But it is evident that such an estimate, even if correct to an acre, would by no means show the increase of production, for a good deal of the land enclosed by act of parliament was formerly cultivated in common field; and, on the other hand, the improvements in the cultivation of the old enclosures have probably done more to augment the whole agricultural produce, than all the new lands that have been taken in. If, however, we take the total amount, every thing included, to be equal to the produce of two millions of acres added to the former produce, and if it be true that the population has only increased two millions during the same period, there will appear to have been an increase of nearly six millions of quarters in the supply, and only an increase in the permanent demand, in the proportion of two millions. But, as I have already said, these estimates are not to be trusted either way, and I had much rather rest upon the broad principle furnished by a reference to the known events in the history of the late war, down to the year 1808. The improvements in most parts of the country have been going on so visibly, that the most careless observer must have been struck by them. Not only wastes have disappeared for miles and miles, giving place to houses, fences, and crops; not only have even the most inconsiderable commons, the very village greens, and the little stripes of sward by the way-side, been in many places subjected to division and exclusive ownership, and cut up into corn-fields in the rage for farming; not only have stubborn soils been forced to bear crops by mere weight of metal, by sinking money in the earth, as it has been called,—but the land that formerly grew something has been fatigued with labour, and loaded with capital, until it yielded much more; the work both of men and cattle has been economized, new skill has been applied, and a more dexterous combination of different kinds of husbandry been practised, until, without at all comprehending the waste lands wholly added to the productive territory of the island, it may be safely said, not perhaps that two blades of grass now grow where one only grew before, but I am sure, that five grow where four used to be; and that this kingdom which foreigners were wont to taunt as a mere manufacturing and trading country, inhabited by a shopkeeping nation, is in reality, for its size, by far the greatest agricultural state in the world.

Previous to the year 1810 or 1811, no great effect appears to have been felt in the corn market from all this system of improvement. The measures taken to increase our produce had not begun fully to operate, and the new inclosures had not yielded their due returns. The crop of 1810 was not a very good one, and that of 1811 was extremely bad. But about 1812, when the new cultivation and the improvements in farms generally, may be supposed to have produced their full effect, there began a series of events, some of them accidental and beyond human foresight to anticipate, others less strange perhaps in themselves, but in their union scarcely more to be expected, all operating in the same direction, and that direction the very opposite, as far as regards agriculture, to the line in which the no less unparalleled combination of circumstances already mentioned, had been operating in the preceding years. The harvest of 1812 was a very abundant one; that of 1813, I believe, exceeded any that had ever been known; and the crop of 1814 was not much inferior. But the political events of those three years had an influence still more important upon the markets. Here I must take leave to state how widely I differ with my hon. friend the member for Essex (Mr. Western), respecting the effects of the peace. In the able and luminous speech with which he introduced this subject to the House, and in which he showed at once the greatest industry, talent, and moderation, be contended that the termination of hostilities could not be assigned as a cause of the depression in prices, because those prices had begun to fall during the war; and he observed in confirmation of his position, that after former treaties of peace, agricultural produce had risen. The facts upon which he relied when taken altogether, far from supporting his doctrine, furnish me with a satisfactory answer to it. After the peace of Paris, it is true, wheat rose from 36 to 41 shillings the quarter, in 1763, and to 42s. 6d. on an average of five years, ending 1767. So after the peace of Versailles, it rose 5s. the quarter. But the statements upon which my hon. friend relied, as decisive in his favour, were taken from the period question, viz. the year 1813. In January of that year, the market price of wheat was 120s., and in November it had fallen to 75s. The victualling contracts of Portsmouth, were made in January at 123s. 10d.; in November at 67s. 10d. Those of Plymouth, in February at 121s. 9d., in September at 86s. Those of Dept-ford, in February for flour per sack—at 100s. 3d., in November at 65s. Now I beg the committee's attention to these facts, because when coupled with the well known events of the year 1813, they clearly refute my hon. friend's argument, pretended to be built upon them. In January and February wheat and flour were high; in September they had fallen very considerably, owing partly no doubt, to the very abundant harvest reaped during the interval, but in no small degree owing to the important change in public affairs which had taken place during the same interval. The destruction of Buonaparté's grand army had been effected the winter before, and had laid the foundation of the deliverance of Europe, but that happy event had not been completed. The most gigantic enterprise which unprincipled force had ever attempted in modern times, had been defeated by a lucky con- currence of accidents with the violence that gave birth to the project; but much of its author's power still remained unbroken, and no man could foresee that the blind fury which had borne him into jeopardy, would still hurry him to ruin. At all events, a new and a desperate struggle was inevitable, and the great prize of peace on the one side, or universal empire on the other, was to be fought for once more in the ensuing campaign. In the spring and summer of 1813 this battle was fought; and the enemy after incredible efforts of gallantry and skill, was repulsed—but nothing more. Peace seemed considerably more probable, therefore, in September, than it had been in January; but it was not certain. The improvement in our prospects, however, co-operated with the harvest, and prices were lowered from 122s. to 86s. Soon after this period came the decisive battle of Leipsic; peace was now certain, and all that remained to be settled was the terms upon which it should be made, and the degree of security which should attend it; for the struggle which followed could be said to decide nothing more. Accordingly in the interval between September and November prices had fallen from 86 to 68, in round numbers. Contractors could no longer expect the same terms when in all likelihood this was their last bidding. Government was not pressed as before, when its difficulties were so nearly at an end; and the market felt the effects not only of an extraordinary crop, but of the approaching times of peace when the demands of government should be withdrawn, and the supplies of the continent poured in. No man who attends to these facts and dates can entertain a reasonable doubt that the fall of prices was in some degree connected with the approaching termination of the war.

In truth, Sir, it is impossible to overlook the tendency of such a change as the peace brought about in all the great markets of agricultural produce. A sudden diminution in the expenditure of government, to the amount of above fifty millions, could not be effected without greatly de-ranging all markets, both for manufactures and produce directly; and by affecting the markets for manufactures, it must also have influenced circuitously those in which the farmer is more immediately interested. To take only a few specimens of these effects: Can it be denied that the stoppage of the exportation of grain, provi- sions, and even forage, to the peninsula, had an influence in lowering the prices of those articles at home? When orders are no longer given for clothing in Yorkshire, and arms in Warwickshire, does the change which throws so many manufacturers out of employment produce no diminution in the demand for food, and no increase in the levy of parish rates? Look at the effects of the government retiring from the Irish provision market, now that three-fourths of the navy are dismantled. Beside the accounts from the sister kingdom, every gentleman connected with the north and west of England knows, that last summer and autumn the droves of Irish cattle poured through Liverpool, Bristol, and the Welch ports, covered the roads for miles; and that the price of butchers meat, and the rents of grazing farms, which had till then kept up, notwithstanding the fall of grain and of corn lands, began to be sensibly affected. I state these circumstances with the more satisfaction because they are in their nature temporary, and we are led to a somewhat more comfortable prospect by the consideration, that whatever part of the present distresses is ascribable to the change from war to peace, may reasonably be expected to diminish every day, at least as soon as the results of the peace shall enable the general trade of the country to resume its natural and accustomed channels; and shall supply the blank occasioned directly and circuitously in the demands for produce, by the diminished expenditure of government.

The next circumstance to which I shall advert as materially operating against agriculture, is the distress in the commercial world during the latter years of the war. It is very certain that the effects of the fatal year 1810, continue to be felt at this day in the mercantile world. The foundations were then laid of many failures, which have only been delayed by the natural efforts of unfortunate men to ward off a blow they could not escape; efforts which it is impossible very harshly to blame, although undoubtedly the delay of the crash has in most instances only rendered it more pernicious to creditors, and extended its effect more widely, occasioning, perhaps, several failures instead of one. The difficulties of 1812 are fresh in the recollection of the committee, and are still working their effects in many parts of the country, although the repeal of the orders in council by enabling us to export goods, which were all paid for to the amount of seven or eight millions, afforded a most seasonable and important relief, and enabled capitalists to lower their stock on hand in a great proportion. That stock, however, began to increase during the unhappy continuance of the American war; and the peace, unexpectedly made, in Europe, followed by the treaty with America, soon produced an effect to which I must request the serious attention of the committee, because I believe its nature and extent is by no means well understood. After the cramped state in which the enemy's measures, and our own retaliation (as we termed it), had kept our trade for some years, when the events of spring 1814, suddenly opened the continent, a rage for exporting goods of every kind burst forth, only to be explained by reflecting on the previous restrictions we had been labouring under, and only to be equalled (though not in extent), by some of the mercantile delusions connected with South American speculations. Every thing that could be shipped was sent off; all the capital that could be laid hold of was embarked. The frenzy, I can call it nothing less, after the experience of l806 and 1810, descended to persons in the humblest circumstances, and the furthest removed, by their pursuits, from commercial cares. It may give the committee some idea of this disease, if I state what I know to have happened in one or two places. Not only clerks and labourers, but menial servants engaged the little sums which they had been laying up for a provision against old age and sickness; persons went round tempting them to adventure in the trade to Holland, and Germany, and the Baltic; they risked their mite in the hopes of boundless profits; it went with the millions of the more regular traders: the bubble soon burst, like its predecessors of the South Sea, the Mississippi, and Buenos Ayres; English goods were selling for much less in Holland and the north of Europe, than in London and Manchester; in most places they were lying a dead weight without any sale at all; and either no returns whatever were received, or pounds came back for thousands that had gone forth. The great speculators broke; the middling ones lingered out a precarious existence, deprived of all means of continuing their dealings either at home or abroad; the poorer dupes of the delusion had lost their little hoards, and went upon the parish the next mishap that befel them; but the result of the whole has been much commercial distress—a caution now absolutely necessary in trying new adventures—a prodigious diminution in the demand for manufactures, and indirectly a serious defalcation in the effectual demand for the produce of land.

The peace with America has produced somewhat of a similar effect, though I am very far from placing the vast exports which it occasioned upon the same footing with those to the European market the year before; both because ultimately the Americans will pay, which the exhausted state of the continent renders very unlikely; and because it was well worth while to incur a loss upon the first exportation, in order, by the glut, to stifle in the cradle those rising manufactures in the United States, which the war had forced into existence contrary to the natural course of things. But, in the mean time, the enormous amount of, I believe, eighteen millions worth of goods were exported to North America in one year; I am informed nearly sixteen millions went through the port of Liverpool alone; and, for a considerable part of this, no returns have been received, while still more of it must have been selling at a very scanty profit. The immediate effect has been a sensible increase of the difficulties which I have already described as flowing from the unexpected opening of the European market in the impoverished and unsettled state of the continent.

And now it was, when a general commercial distress began to prevail, that the consequences of our paper circulation, and the banking operations connected with it, not gradually as had been expected, but almost instantaneously developed themselves. Whether the change of measures, which I am about to mention as one of the principal, if not the very first cause of our present sufferings, began with the country banks or the bank of England; whether it was the necessary consequence of the difficulties which were pressing upon trade, and which, at any rate, it mightily increased, or was the chief cause of those difficulties; whether or not blame is imputable to any persons, or bodies corporate, I will not stop to inquire, for it is wholly immaterial to the present investigation; and when I mention certain known facts in one order rather than another, I do so without intending to assert that they were connected together. The bank of England not very slowly limited its discounts and diminished its issues of paper about three millions. At one period, indeed, the amount of notes in circulation had exceeded that to which they were now reduced, by six millions; but the average had been for some time about three millions higher. The country banks acting less upon system and more under the influence of alarm, lessened their discounts in a much greater degree. A single failure would stop all such transactions over a whole district, and I could mention one large stoppage which made it difficult, for a length of time, to discount a bill any where in three or four counties. The persons who felt this change most severely were of course those who had been speculating in any way, but above all others, speculators in land; those who had either purchased or improved beyond their actual means upon the expectation of that credit and accommodation being continued, which had enabled them to commence their operations. Ordinary traders have much greater facilities in the money market; and their speculations are much more speedily terminated. The improver of land has to deal with property not easily convertible into money, and his adventures extend necessarily over a long course of years. Persons in this situation soon found their borowed capital withdrawn; when the fall of produce made it difficult for them to pay the interest, they were suddenly called upon for the principal; they had gotten into a situation which no prudence could have enabled them to avoid, because it was the result of events which no sagacity could have foreseen; they had for many years been tempted to speculate by a facility of obtaining capital or credit, which in a month or two was utterly withdrawn; and before the least warning had been given either by the course of events, or by the dealers in money and accommodation, a support was removed which the most cautious of men might well have expected to be continued indefinitely, or at any rate, to be gradually removed. I beg leave in illustration of this matter, to remind the committee how those undertakings have been carried on which I before described as extending so greatly the agriculture of the country. A man of small fortune, or a farmer making considerable profits by the high prices of the period I have so often alluded to, saw an opportunity of making a desirable purchase, upon an enclosure, or a sale in his neighbourhood. He had scraped together a couple of thousand pounds, perhaps; but the sum required for buying, and then improving the land, was four or five. The banker supplied this difference, and by his accommodations enabled some middleman, trading in credit, to supply it, and the cultivator had every reason to hope he should, in a few years, be able to repay it by the continued prosperity of farming concerns. At any rate he reckoned upon paying the interest and not being called upon for the principal, in security of which he probably deposited the title deeds of his purchase as a pledge. The extension of cultivation caused by these very operations, together with the other circumstances to which I have referred, rapidly lowers the price of all produce; the alarm of money dealers begins to spread; hardly able to pay the interest which is in reality a fourth more than it was while the currency was depreciated 25 per cent., he is called upon to pay up the principal itself; destitute of any thing that can be turned into money, he is fain to abandon his purchase with all the improvements which his savings and his toil have made upon it; and the lender finds himself in hardly a better situation, without the means of obtaining payment, and with title deeds in his hand, which he can turn to no account, unless he brings the land into the market. Now, the certainty of such a measure lowering its price, prevents this step from being taken; and, accordingly, great as the distress has been, very little land has been actually sold; not so much as ought to have been, is thrown out of cultivation; good money, to use the common expression, is thrown after bad; the money dealer becomes, from necessity, a land-jobber; and the distress continues pushing its shoots in all directions, round the whole circle of trade, until, by re-action, the farmer suffers again indirectly, and the total amount of suffering is, if I may so speak, augmented by its universality, and the connexion of its parts. Nor should I be at all surprised if things were to grow worse before they got better; at least I am very certain that the price of land will be lower before it is higher, from the undoubted fact of many sales that must take place, having been delayed as long as possible in the vain hope of the necessity being evaded.

In referring to the state of credit and circulation, I have purposely avoided dwelling upon the great evils that have resulted from the fluctuations in the value of the currency, not because I under-rate them, but because they only affect one class of sufferers from the present distresses, I mean those who have made bargains or formed calculations for time; such as persons taking long leases, or borrowing money at a fixed rate of interest, or speculating upon making sales at a future period. Of these classes I shall say a word or two by-and-bye. But there is a circumstance affecting all classes, and of which it is quite impossible to exaggerate the importance in accounting for the changes that have recently afflicted the agriculture of the kingdom, I mean, the state of our finances—the complete revolution which the last twenty-five years have effected in the revenue and expenditure of the country.

During that period our revenue has increased from 15 to about 66 millions; our expenditure in one year exceeded 125 millions; this year of peace it is to be above 72 millions, and no hopes are held out of its being permanently below 65. That such a prodigious change could be wrought in the system of taxation and of public credit, without seriously affecting the landed interest, from which so large a proportion of the taxes is drawn, no man will for a moment suppose. But I believe few have formed to themselves distinct ideas of the manner in which excessive taxation has been operating on agriculture, and very inadequate notions are I am sure, entertained of the amount of that operation. It is not indeed, very easy to trace it; and to estimate precisely how much of the pressure falls exclusively upon the cultivator would be impossible. But I shall take the liberty of submitting to you such means of approximation as I have been able to find, aware of the justice of an observation made this night by the member for Surrey (Mr. H. Sumner,) that by communicating freely the ideas which have struck each of us upon this great question, we may hope for mutual correction and instruction.

I shall suppose a farm of 400 acres of fair good land, yielding a rent of from 5l. to 600l. a year, managed according to the husbandry practised in the northern counties, with which only I can profess any particular acquaintance. It will require for a four course, 200 acres, being in corn, 100 fallow, and 100 in hay and grass, fourteen plough horses, and supposing a saddle horse, and a servant, and a dog to be paid for, with a farm-house of twelve windows, the assessed taxes will amount to 22l. 8s. a year. This is a clear addition to the expenses of 1792, with which I am making the comparison. I pass over the income tax, as not peculiar to farmers, though it has been peculiarly oppressive to them wherever the estimated exceeded the real profits. But the principal increase of expense has been upon the labour. The wages of the nine regular men servants who must be employed, have risen since 1792 from 30l to 50l. each, but I will put the rise only at 15l, making in the whole 135l. Beside this, we must allow for the rise in the day labour required at spring and fall. Upon the 200 acres in corn, this will amount to a rise from 10s. an acre to 15s, or 50l. in all—Upon the other 100 acres in hay and grass, the rise will be from 5s. an acre to 7s. 6d.— and the same upon the 100 acres of fallow—making an addition of 25l.; or 75l. for the whole increase upon day labour. Two women servants must be allowed—and their wages are more increased in proportion, than those of men, principally I believe, from the unwillingness of farmers wives and daughters to work as they used to do before the more flourishing times; but take the rise on this head only at 10l.—and we have the total increase on labour 220l. Blacksmiths' and carpenters' bills have in like manner been raised, certainly not less than 15l. each upon such a farm as I am supposing; and the rise on saddlers' bills cannot be estimated at less than 10l.; making upon these bills a rise of 40l., which added to the former heads, gives the total increase in the expenses of cultivating such a farm, as equal to 282l. 8s., independent of the great rise on lime and all sorts of manure.

Now I admit, that we have no right to set down the whole or nearly the whole of this large sum to the taxes which have been imposed since 1792: but a great part of it manifestly does arise from those taxes. Whatever part arises from the increased prices of grain and other provisions may be deducted, and will fall again with those prices. Whatever remains must be ascribed to the taxes chiefly. Above 22l. of the sum comes from direct taxation. At least one half of the rise on the saddlers' bills, or 5l. more is owing to the same cause. But a considerable proportion of the grand item of labour is imputable to the taxes also. For let us only reflect on the nature of the duties which have been imposed. Many of them affect articles of prime necessity; as soap, salt, leather, and candles, all of which are ranked among necessaries of life by the writers on these subjects, and, what is a better authority, are felt to be such by the consumers; taxes upon all of which are allowed by those writers to affect directly the price of labour. Now the tax on leather has been doubled within the last four years: being raised from three halfpence, at which it stood before the war [Here the chancellor of the exchequer said across the table, "And ever since the reign of Queen Anne"] to threepence, the present duty. The duty on salt which in 1782, and I believe up to 1792 was only 10d. a bushel, had been raised previous to 1806 to 15 shillings, the present duty. And candles have in the same period been taxed considerably. But these articles are not the only ones which may be reckoned necessaries, and are subjected to additional duties. In most parts of England beer is to be classed in this list, from the universal custom of drinking it which prevails, and the duties upon it most seriously affect the farmer as a consumer of it, besides their pernicious tendency against his interest as a grower. The duty on malt has been raised from 10s. 7d per quarter, to 34s. 8d., of which 16s. is war duty; that on beer since 1802 has been increased from 5s. 7½d. per barrel, to 9s. 7¼d. or about 4s., while that on spirits has been raised since 1792 from 7d, to 21d. per gallon of wash, or 14d. addition. The total revenue collected from these duties is 12,350,000l., by which the land suffers directly in proportion to the whole amount, and indirectly in proportion as its cultivators are consumers of the manufactured article. But the price of agricultural labour is affected likewise by the duties of custom on many imported goods, which long habit has rendered scarcely less essential than some which I have enumerated as articles of first necessity. Of this class is sugar, upon which the heaviest taxes known in the history of finance, are laid. I believe indeed there are many persons who would rather go without soap than sugar; and this is now subject to a duty of 30s. per cwt. instead of l5s., at which it was taxed before 1793. It must also be observed that whatever prohibiting or protecting duties have been laid upon foreign manufactures of articles used in clothing, these fall directly upon the labourer, and in so much tend to raise his wages, for the benefit, not certainly of the farmer, but the manufacturer. It is therefore evident that much of the augmentation in the expense of working a farm, a considerable portion of the sum of 220l., which I have stated to have been added since 1792 to that large branch of a farmer's expenditure, is chargeable to the taxes; and a portion also of the sum of 35l. the part of the rise in the carpenter's and other bills not directly affected by taxes, must also be charged to the same account. It is impossible to state with any degree of accuracy what the total amount of the increase of taxation has been upon these items; but that it must have been considerable no one can reasonably doubt; and I beg to warn gentlemen against under-rating it from the fall in the rate of wages that has lately taken place. Labour has indeed, come down, and in my opinion a good deal more than was to be wished, I mean a good deal more than the fall of other prices justified. This fall must have resulted from the general distress of the country, and the number of hands in consequence every where thrown out of employment; but it is no sort of: proof that the present is the natural and healthy state of wages; or that they will long remain so low; or that the fall in the price of provisions has, permanently reduced wages to their level before the war; and therefore it is no kind of evidence that the increase in the expense of cultivation has arisen from the rise in prices alone, and not also from the increase of taxation.

But it may be said, that the taxes have not fallen exclusively upon the farmer, and that he only suffers in common with the rest of the country. Now, to this I shall offer, I think, the most satisfactory answers. It must be remembered, in the first place, that part of the taxes fall directly and exclusively upon the landed interest. Some of the assessed taxes, and the enormous malt, beer, and spirit duties are clearly of this description. But next, observe how differently the farmer is circumstanced in these times from the other parts of the community, with respect to the rise in wages, produced partly by the taxes. The commodity in which he deals is on the decline in point of price from over cultivation; he cannot therefore throw the tax upon the consumer. If manufactured goods are in high demand, the customer pays the duties to which the manufacturer may be subject, either directly, or indirectly by the rise in wages caused by those taxes. If those goods are falling in price, the tax presses upon the manufacturer himself. Now this is, and for some time past has been, in a peculiar manner, the state of the farmer, who indeed never has the means of suddenly accommodating the supply of his commodity to the demand, with the nicety and dispatch observable in the operations of trade. But, a still more material circumstance distinguishes the situation of the farmer from that of the manufacturer, relieving the latter at the expense of the former. I allude to the state of the law, which throws upon the land the whole burthen of maintaining the poor, and reduces the price of all labour below its natural level at the sole expense of the cultivator. It is well known to the committee, that whatever may have been the intention of the legislature, (and the meaning of the statute of Elizabeth is sufficiently plain), yet, from a defect in the powers of the act, the money raised for the support of the poor, is paid entirely by the land. Persons in trade only pay in so far as they are also owners of real property. Thus a manufacturer who is deriving ten or twelve thousand a year from his trade, is rated as if he only had a large building worth four or five hundred a year beside his dwelling-house, while his neighbour, who possesses a farm of the same yearly value pays as much; that is, the man of' ten thousand a year in trade, pays no more than the man of five hundred a year in land. Yet, only observe the difference between the two in the relation to labour and to the poor. The farmer employs a few hands—the manufacturer a whole colony;—the farmer causes no material augmentation in the number of paupers—the manufacturer multiplies paupers by wholesale; the one supports—the other makes paupers, manufactures them just as certainly, and in something of the same proportion as he manufactures goods. The inequality of this distribution is plain enough, but I ant now speaking of it in its relation chiefly to the subject of wages. From the abuse of the poor laws, it has become the prevailing practice to support by parish relief, not merely persons who are disabled from working by disease or age, but those who, though in health, cannot earn enough to maintain them; and, by a short-sighted policy, wholly unaccountable, the custom has spread very widely of keeping down the wages of labour by the application of the poor-rates, as if any thing could equal the folly of paying rates rather than hire; of parting with the disposition of your own money, and of paying for labour, not in proportion to your own demand for that labour, but in proportion to some general average of the district you chance to live in. I pass over the inevitable effect of this arrangement, in raising the total amount of the sums paid for labour, and in throwing upon one farm the expenses of cultivating another less favourably circumstanced; it is enough for my present purpose to remark, that the whole effect of the system is to make the land pay a sum yearly, levied in the most unequal manner, applied in the least economical way, for the purpose of lowering the wages generally, and lowering the wages of manufacturing as well as agricultural labour. From this unquestionable position, I draw two inferences, I think equally undeniable, and bearing directly upon the subject of our present inquiry;—the one is, that the effects of taxation in raising the price of labour are not distributed equally over all classes of the community, but fall exclusively upon the land, the land paying for the rise which the taxes have occasioned, both in agricultural labour, and in all other kinds of work—the other is, that, even if the fall in the price of provisions should apparently restore wages permanently to their former level, the real rate of wages would still be raised, and the real costs of cultivation be augmented, unless the poor rates also had been brought back to their former amount. The sum now levied upon the land for this purpose, exceeds eight millions. Before the American war it was less than two. I think I have said enough to show how immediately, how severely, how exclusively the rise in the taxes from fifteen to sixty-six millions has pressed upon agriculture; how impossible it is to expect substantial relief as long as that pressure continues.

I have now, Sir, I fear, at a very unreasonable length, gone through the causes which appear to have co-operated in producing our present distresses; and I come at last to a consideration of the means by which the evil may be remedied, or at least rendered supportable. In entering upon this part of the subject, I feel sensibly the delicacy of the ground I am going to tread. No one ought, without the most serious examination of it, to ven- ture an opinion which (from the respect paid to our deliberations in this place), may have a material influence upon the fortunes of individuals, and, at any rate, may agitate their hopes and fears in a crisis of such general solicitude. I wish, therefore, to state nothing that has not been suggested to my mind by every mature and anxious deliberation; but, whatever may appear justified by such research, I think it my duty to propound, without the smallest regard to personal considerations, or to the prejudices that may prevail in any quarter.

And, first, I am afraid there is one class of persons who can hardly expect effectual relief from any measures, or from any supposable change of times; I mean those who have been trading largely in land upon borrowed capital. They have speculated upon a continuance of extravagant prices, and the fund is, in all likelihood, gone for ever, out of which their debts were to have been repaid. The fall in the market price of bullion is of itself a severe loss to such adventurers; they have still to pay in money as before, when every hundred pounds is really worth one hundred and twenty-five; they have to pay as much money to their creditors as formerly, and they can only receive three-fourths as much from their customers. I would fain hope, however, that such is not the situation of the great bulk of proprietors, to whom, perhaps, a permanent relief (and even to the speculator a palliative) may possibly be found. Those who have been expending large sums on bad land are in the worst state, and I fear that a good deal which ought never to have been cultivated at all, must be abandoned, and much grass land that should not have been broken up, must be laid down again as well as circumstances will permit, unquestionably at a great loss. The lowering of rents, which has pretty generally taken place, can hardly be reckoned any considerable relief, if other circumstances remain the same. It is a severe loss to the landlord, a loss which he sustains alone of all who have made time bargains; for no one heats of mortgagees or other creditors giving up twenty-five per cent., either on principal or interest, because the value of money has risen in that proportion; but to the tenant it affords a very inadequate relief, for he is complaining of a fall in the price of his gross produce, of above three pounds an acre, (supposing the produce to be three quarters per acre), and all that the land-lord can do for him is to take off five shillings an acre, leaving him to struggle against a loss of fifty-five shillings. But I shall now beg the attention of the committee to the different measures which have been proposed, and in discussing these, as well as in submitting others to your consideration, I shall be guided by the view which I have taken of the nature and causes of the evil.

The first of these remedies, in point of importance as well as of time, is the corn bill of last session. Although that measure is no longer a matter of discussion, yet as I had not the honour of a seat in this house either when my honourable friend (Mr. Western) brought forward the bill of 1804, or when he raised the importation price last year from 63s. 6d. to 80s. I deem it more fair not to avoid the topic, but to state my opinion frankly upon its merits, the more especially as it has been the object of very strong disapprobation in many parts of the country. I certainly am disposed to think favourably of it, although I am well aware how diffidently it becomes us to speak upon a measure which has divided so widely the ablest men, both in parliament and out of doors, marshalling in almost equally formidable array on the opposite sides of the dispute, the statesmen and the political authors,^* whose opinions upon such a subject are the most entitled to respect. As it is impossible, however, upon such a controversy not to oppose great authorities, so it is some comfort that, for the same reason, one has the support also of eminent names; and this emboldens me in stating, that I conceive the measure to be politic, at the least, as a palliative, or as affording the means of carrying the country through difficulties, the greatest pressure of which we may hope will only prove temporary. But then, I can by no means excuse the language of those who deride it merely because it is temporary, or as they term it, an expedient. If it enables us to get over the existing evils, arising, in great part, from a transition to a new state of things, it does a great permanent good; it saves much valuable capital from being totally lost, much skill and labour already bestowed, from being thrown

away; and it may thus, even where it fails in affording entire relief, be most important as preventing entire ruin. A measure of this description is only in name one of a temporary nature; its operation is solid and lasting. I pass over its tending to secure a constant and certain supply of food to the community; I am speaking of it merely as a measure calculated for the relief of the agricultural interests, and of all the branches of trade immediately dependent upon them. In the same light may be regarded the extension of the measure to some other kinds of agricultural produce, which is at present before parliament.

^* See, on the one side, Mr. Malthus's excellent tracts—and, on the other, the very able discussion of the corn bill of 1804, by Mr. Mill.

But I own I view, in a very different light, my honourable friend's propositions respecting bounties upon the exportation of corn. To pass over every other objection to such a plan, if there be any truth in the positions which I think I have established, that the principal causes of our distresses are the too rapid extension of cultivation, and the intolerable weight of the taxes; surely it follows inevitably that to force exportation by a bounty, would only perpetuate the one of these causes, and increase the other. Indeed, I marvel that my honourable friend could have thought of such a measure in times like the present. Why, its very essence is taxation, and to a vast amount,—taxation upon the people of this country to make us sell corn cheap to foreigners—taxation upon the land already oppressed with burthens. And how are such new sums to be levied? We have got rid of the income tax—that is some relief to the farmer. Does my honourable friend wish this burthen to be once more imposed for the relief of agriculture? Or, does he peradventure desire to see the malt tax again raised from 14s. to 30s. in order to encourage the production of grain? All that has ever been paid in bounties formerly, is a trifle compared with the sums which this new scheme would require. In 1814, for instance, the last year for which we have the return, the whole of the bounties paid by government did not exceed 206,800l.—a sum, in all probability, very injudiciously bestowed, but still not very ruinous in its amount. A corn bounty, when wheat is selling, perhaps, 20s. a quarter higher in this country than in the foreign markets, would cost a million for every million of quarters taken out of the home market: and each effect produced by this forced exportation, in raising the price at home, would render the exportation more costly.

But nothing, in my humble opinion, can be worse founded than another remedy suggested by my honourable friend; I mean the exclusion of foreign corn from our warehouses and the encouragement to store our own grain in the public repositories. Have farmers no barn-yards or granaries of their own, in which they can keep their corn until the market is favourable? Are the crops in greater danger of rats there than in the King's warehouses? But it is pretended that foreign corn is at present imported, and fills the public granaries, ready to be poured out the instant that the Gazette gives the signal, by declaring the average to be 80s. for the last six weeks; and my honourable friend considers that if the permission thus to warehouse foreign grain were withdrawn, no such effect could be produced. Now, I will suffer myself to be devoured by the vermin I have been talking of, if I do not, in a few minutes, show my honourable friend himself, the fallacy of this argument. Does he think that merchants wait for the Gazette to learn the price during any period of six weeks? Are they ignorant of the weekly and daily state of the markets? Do they not know at any moment of any six weeks how the prices are running, and can they form no guess, as the six weeks elapse, of the average at which the Gazette return is likely to state them? Why, the corn merchant does not even wait until a harvest is ripe before he commences his calculations, in order to form his plans of importation. I happen to know a little of this branch of trade, and I can inform my honourable friend, that there are emissaries sent round the country while the grain is in the ear, to collect samples, which are sifted out and measured and weighed, in order to affix data upon which the goodness of the crop, its yield, may be estimated, long be-fore a sickle has glanced among the stalks. While my honourable friend is sitting in his study, forming plans upon the supposition that those corn-merchants will wait for the periodical promulgation of the average, by the King's printer, they are actually in his fields, committing an innocent trespass, to obtain the earliest information of the next crop as the groundwork of their speculations; and upon this knowledge they speedily begin to act. If the permission to warehouse is withheld, they still must act upon the rise of the markets, and the only difference will be, that instead of collecting the grain on this side of the water, they will have it on the other, to the benefit of foreign merchants, agents, and warehousemen, but just as ready to be poured in as if it were in our own ports. Indeed, any one must be sensible, after a moment's consideration, that nothing but a confident expectation of the price approaching to 80s. could induce merchants to bring over their cargoes and lodge them in this country, when they know, that until it reaches the point, all the expenses of the importation are incurred for nothing. Whether the voyage is made before or after the day on which the Gazette declares the point has been attained, must obviously be a matter of perfect indifference; and it is the only thing which the permission or prohibition of warehousing can affect.

The alteration suggested in the laws relating to wool, appears to me in a very different light. I had the honour of broaching this important subject on the first day of the session, and every thing that has since come to my knowledge confirms the opinion I then ventured to express. As a committee has been appointed this night to investigate the question, at the suggestion of my hon. friend (Mr. Frankland Lewes), who has thrown i so much light on the whole matter now under discussion, I shall abstain from going into it at length; but I must beg to press upon your attention how greatly the agricultural interests are concerned in it. The most important relief has been afforded to many parts of the country by the good prices which wool has borne during the depression of almost all other produce: I allude especially to the long coarse wool, the ancient and peculiar staple of this island. Ten years ago it was from 9d. to 1s. the pound; now it is 21d., and it was recently as high as 2s. This article is the growth, and has, during the bad times, formed the support of Lincolnshire and the midland counties. Further northwards we have principally the coarse wool from the black-faced sheep. This is grown in the northern counties, and as far as Edinburgh: it used to be 7d. or 8d., and is now 14d. or 15d. the pound. The relief afforded by such prices is not confined to the wool grower; it extends to all other agriculturists in his neighbourhood; because whatever saves a farmer from distress or ruin upon the general balancing of his accounts, keeps him from glutting the market with his produce or stock, and prevents the general market of agricultural produce from being depressed. In like manner, to support the wool districts has extended relief to the other districts, and has produced a favourable effect upon the whole markets of the country, rendering the pressure of the general distress considerably lighter than it would have been had the wool grower been in the same predicament with all other agriculturists. There is every reason however to apprehend, that this article also is on the decline: it has actually fallen within the last three months, and would certainly fall much more rapidly but for the large orders now in the market in consequence of extensive contracts for clothing foreign troops. I have heard of one contract for the uniforms of 150,000 men, which must raise the demand for the wool immediately connected with that in question. Under these circumstances, and indeed at any time, it seems to be a most unwise policy as far as regards our agriculture, to prohibit the exportation of wool. The finer sort would in all probability find no market abroad, and a permission to export it would therefore have no effect either way; but for the coarse, especially the long wool, there must always be a great demand, as it is absolutely necessary to certain manufactures, and is at present peculiar to this island. It well deserves the attention of the committee, whether the prohibiting laws should not be repealed, which compel the wool grower to sell his commodity at home, in order that the manufacturer may work it, and the consumer may wear it much cheaper than they would if the farmer had the choice of his market. The establishment of a free trade would not raise the price above its present standard, nor in all likelihood would it prevent some further fall, but it would at least guard us against the great depression which may now be apprehended. These are points, however, well worthy of inquiry, and I look to the labours of the committee appointed to night for much information upon them.

But the most material subject for our consideration, consistently with the view which I have taken of the present distresses is manifestly the burthens peculiarly affecting land; and these are the tythes, parish rates, and general taxes. Upon the subject of tythes, I have much to submit to your notice, as it has long and anxiously engaged my attention; but it seems not to be peculiarly connected with our present inquiry, as tythe rather affects the expenditure of capital in improvements, and this is certainly not the predicament of almost any person in these times. I am desirous therefore of deferring to another opportunity the observations which I have to make on the plans of commutation proposed by different gentlemen, particularly by my hon. friend the member for Hertfordshire (Mr. Brand) as well as another method not yet suggested, by which I feel assured an arrangement of this important matter might be made with great facility and safety. The subject of the poor-rates, however, is one which, in an especial manner, presses for discussion; and I am confident that every one who may have honoured with his attention the observations which I have submitted to you, will perceive how essential some revision of the system is to the welfare of agriculture.

It is clear that the exclusive pressure of parish rates upon the land, was never in contemplation of the legislature; but as the 43d of Elizabeth, whatever it may enact with respect to the persons who shall pay, furnishes no means of obtaining payment in proportion to the profits of trade and professions, the law, if unaltered, must continue to throw the whole burthen upon the land owner. In addition to this he has to support almost all the public works, as roads, bridges, and churches, in which he is no more interested than the other members of the community. They are made originally at his expense, and kept in repair by him; and, although the rest of the country refunds a part of the money originally advanced, yet, every one knows, how seldom this is adequate to his repayment—while the repairs, constantly required, are a certain loss to him. At present, however, I am speaking chiefly of the poor-rates. The deviation, in some measure necessary, from the intent of the statute of Elizabeth, as to the class who shall pay them, is not more fatal to the interest of the land owner, than the perversion of that law, without any such excuse, to the support of all poor persons, whether capable or incapable of work, and the supply of money to those who earn what are deemed inadequate gains. I confess that I see but one radical cure for the state into which this last abuse has thrown the country, and which is daily growing worse, deranging its whole eco- nomy; debasing its national character. The inequality of the system may be remedied; as least, I would fain hope that some method might be devised, without having recourse to the odious machinery of the income tax, for making the other property bear its share with the land in defraying the expense which should fall equally on all income, if it is to be compulsory upon any. But though great relief may thus be obtained, the worst vices of the system are deeper seated, and admit, I fear, but of one cure. As the law is now administered, under the influence of the habits which have unfortunately grown up with the abuse of it, the lower orders look to parish relief, no longer with dread or shame; but they regard it as a fund out of which their wants may at all times be supplied. To say nothing of the effects of this feeling upon their habits of industry and economy; to pass over its fatal influence on their character, and especially on their spirit of independence; only observe how it removes all check upon imprudent marriages, and tends to multiply the number of the people beyond the means of subsistence—that is, to multiply the numbers of the poor. A young couple who feel inclined to marry, never think, now-a-days, of waiting until they can afford it, until they have a prospect of being able to support a family. They hardly consider whether they are able to support themselves.' They know that whatever deficit may arise in their means, the parish must make up; and they take into their account the relief derivable from this source, as confidently and with as little repugnance as if it were a part of their inheritance. It is truly painful to reflect that our peasantry who, some time ago, used to regard such a supply with dread—used to couple every notion of ruin, misery, and even degradation with the thought of coming upon the parish—should now be accustoming themselves to receiving relief almost as if it were a regular part of their wages. I can see but one effectual remedy for this great and growing evil; it is the one which follows so immediately from the principles unfolded in Mr. Malthus's celebrated work. It might be objectionable, on many grounds, to withhold relief from the future issue of marriages already contracted; but why may not such relief be refused to the children born of marriages to be contracted after a certain period? An exception might perhaps be made in favour of those who are incapable of working from age, or other infirmity, though I know not that it would be better to make their claims a matter of right than an appeal to charitable assistance. But persons able to work, and the issue of marriages had after the law is changed, should certainly be excluded. This change would not operate an immediate reform of the system, but the reform would be a perfectly sure one, and it would commence almost as soon as the law passed. If any gentleman is scared at so great an innovation, I will only ask him to survey the enormous amount and odious nature of the evil complained of, and to make his choice between the expedient suggested, and the mischief so severely felt, not, indeed, as it at present exists, but in the still greater extent towards which it is daily hastening.

The next point to which I shall beg the attention of the committee, is the means of relieving the land, and indeed the country in general, from the pressure of taxation, which I have shown to have so great a share in the present distresses. That such relief is within our reach, to a very great extent, I hold to be perfectly manifest. The whole sums applicable to the sinking fund for the last year amount to 15,627,000l., and including the Irish debt, 16,928,000l. Of this the financial operations of 1808 and 1813, have appropriated 4,302,000l.; there remains undisposed of, 12,626,000l., and the sinking fund on the Austrian and Portuguese loans is 124,000l., which makes the whole unapplied fund 12,750,000l. Now, of this large revenue, 6,479,000l. arises from the one per cent. upon all loans contracted since 1793. It may be thought consistent with good faith to preserve this portion of the fund entire; and before such a plan as I am now suggesting could begin to operate, it would amount to about six millions and a half. The remaining part of the fund, including the annual grants, and the interest of the other redeemed stock, amounting to 6,271,000l., of at the period in question, to about 6,300,000l., might, I will venture to say, not only without detriment, but with advantage to the credit of the country, be applied to its relief in the remission of the most oppressive taxes. If a sinking fund of six millions and a half is left, operating at a time when there are no new loans, it will produce a far greater effect in the stock market than the whole fund has ever done during war, when much more stock was constantly poured in than the commissioners could redeem. Indeed, this is too large a fund to remain so applied in time of peace, and could only be justified by the notion prevailing in some most respectable quarters, that good faith towards the lenders, since 1792, requires the one per cent. to be left untouched. But for preserving the other six millions and a quarter, no pretext can be urged, especially after the inroads already made upon the fund during war, which have destroyed all idea of its inviolability, in the minds of those who held it sacred. The prospect of the vast benefits which might be conferred on the country by such an arrangement, is so dazzling that I am afraid to trust myself with painting it. Only let the committee reflect for a moment upon the taxes which might be instantly repealed, supposing always that our expenses have been by retrenchment brought within our present revenue. The taxes that press most upon agriculture—those on leather, husbandry horses, and malt, might at once be done away. The most oppressive of the assessed taxes might also be repealed. The bad gains of the lottery, by which money is raised directly at the expense of public morals, might be abandoned. In short, we should have the pleasing task, during the remainder of this session of inquiring what taxes pressed most severely upon the people, or were most pernicious in their effects, and of lightening the burthen to the extent of between six and seven millions. As the remaining part of the sinking fund increased, further relief might, from time to time, be afforded; for surely it never could be in the contemplation of any one who understood the public economy of the country, in its trading as well as financial concerns, that the whole amount of the taxes required by the existing debt should be repealed at once, and the transition made suddenly from a levy of forty-two millions a year to no levy at all. Nor could any friend to the stability of the constitution wish to see the executive government for any period, how short so ever, posssessed of that enormous income unappropriated to any service. But they who tell us that the sinking fund is sacred, or rather that it has, since 1813, become sacred—who will not hear of any proposition for gradually reducing it—whom nothing will satisfy but a rise of stocks in a few months to par, the repayment of 100l. for every 50l. or 55l. that we have borrowed, and the continuance of all our heavy burthens until the moment when they may all cease together—those persons must surely be prepared either to show that the taxes now paying for the benefit of posterity are unconnected with the distresses of the present age, or to produce some other means of relieving their country. The question is now at issue between the stock-holder and all the rest of the community, and it is for the committee to say whether they will, at all hazards and costs, take his part, or listen to the only imaginable means of effectually remedying the most trying of the evils we are labouring under.

Before I sit down, Sir, I must advert to the great importance of keeping a most watchful eye over the mercantile and manufacturing interests of the kingdom. It is an inexcusable ignorance or thoughtlessness alone, which can never overlook the intimate connexion between our trading and our agricultural concerns;- nor can anything be more preposterous than the clamour frequently raised on the one or the other side, as if those two great branches of public industry could have interests incompatible with each other. The sufferings of the merchants and manufacturers are hardly less severe in these times, than the distresses which immediately occupy our attention in this committee. It well becomes us to see that they do not increase under the pressure of foreign com-petition, since the restoration of peace on the continent. Whatever measures may tend to open new markets to our industry, the government is most imperiously called upon to entertain; a more effectual relief can hardly be given to agriculture than such a support extended to the other parts of the community. Let me in this light, intreat the attention of the committee, and more especially of his majesty's ministers, to the trade with South America. Connected as we are with the governments of Portugal and Spain, by every tie that can give one power a claim to favour from another, surely we may hope to see some arrangements made which shall facilitate our intercourse with the rich markets of Mexico, Brazil, and Peru. At present, if I am rightly informed, a considerable traffic is driven with those fertile countries, but under trammels that render it irksome and precarious. It is known that no consuls or residents, either commercial or political, are established in Spanish America; and, indeed, the whole trade is little better than a contraband carried on with a certain degree of connivance. Yet it is difficult to imagine any thing more beneficial to our mercantile interests, than the establishment of a regular and authorized connexion with those parts of the world. The subject is not free from delicacy, in consequence of the efforts making by the Spanish colonies to shake off the yoke of the mother country—efforts, for the success of which every enlightened, indeed, every honest man, must devoutly pray. But wherever the authority of the Spanish and Portuguese governments extends, it may be hoped that some footing will be obtained for our merchants by negociation, while, with respect to the revolted colonies, I trust his majesty's ministers will beware how they carry their delicacy towards the mother country too far, and allow other nations to pre-occupy the ground which our own countrymen ought to have their share of. The Americans are in the neighbourhood; we know their indefatigable activity and vast commercial resources; let us take care, not that we press forward to exclude them from the markets in question—that is impossible; but that we obtain access to those marts for ourselves. It is a subject of vast extent and importance; I abstain from entering further into it; but this I will venture to assert, that the minister who shall signalize his official life by establishing, whether in the old or the new world, such a system as may open to his country the commerce of South America, will render a greater service to the state, and leave to posterity a more enviable fame, than it is in the power of conquest to bestow.

Sir, I have to thank the committee for the patient attention with which they have honoured me. I am conscious that I owe it to the singular importance of the subjects I have been handling; and that, too, is the only apology I can offer for having so long trespassed upon your indulgence.

complimented the hon. and learned gentleman who had just sat down, on the ability and temperance with which he had treated this important subject. In the few remarks with which he should think it his duty to trouble the committee, he intended principally to confine himself to those parts of the hon. and learned gentleman's speech, which had more particularly attracted his attention. In the first place, however, he must say, that on a question of such immense importance, he should be very unwilling to be considered as hazarding any conclusive judgment. The subject was of such magnitude and extent, and was liable to be contemplated with such various views, that he felt it his duty to keep his mind as open as he could through the whole course of the discussions which had taken place, and which would yet take place upon it. It would be very easy for the committee to deal with any single practical proposition, and to arrive at a sound judgment with respect to it; but when the question was looked at in the gross—when a picture was exhibited, comprehending all the causes of public prosperity and public distress, the consideration became so complicated, that the boldest politician would not venture to pronounce upon it without the utmost deliberation and anxiety.

The first topic of the hon. and learned gentleman's speech on which he wished to say a few words was, the question of the restriction on cash payments at the bank of England—not intending to bring the whole of that question into discussion, but to confine himself to that part of it, which was, or which was supposed to be, connected with the existing distresses. The hon. and learned gentleman had so far reasoned this question fairly, that he had not imputed to the measure of restriction consequences uniformly unfavourable. On the contrary, the hon. and learned gentleman had maintained, that if well regulated, it had a tendency to produce great prosperity. There was one practical view of the question, which, in his (lord Castlereagh's) opinion, ought never to be forgotten; and that was, that whatever minor inconveniences the restriction on cash payments might have occasioned, it had enabled this country to do all that it had done during the war, and had brought it triumphantly through the various difficulties by which it was threatened. He was sure no man would deny, that had it not been for that measure the country must have sunk under the weight of the power opposed to it, and that it never could have made the efforts which it had made in the course of the war, had it not possessed a circulating medium of such a nature, that it was not exposed to the dangers to which the natural and ordinary circulating medium would have been exposed. This should never be forgotten, whatever might have been the tendency of the measure to occasion abuse—and really there was scarcely any operative measure influencing national prosperity which did not at the same time engender corresponding evils. That it might have led to over-trading, he by no means denied. That many commercial speculations had been entirely founded on a fictitious capital, which of course vanished with a change of circumstances, he was perfectly ready to admit. Those were inconveniences which might not have occurred had the natural circulating medium, and that only, been preserved. But, he repeated, who that knew any thing of the history of the last fifteen years would deny that it was by the operation of the restriction on cash payments that the country had been saved? In his opinion, it was the greatest monument ever erected to the public credit of any country, that the credit of Great Britain had not only endured unshakenly the introduction of this auxiliary and substituted circulating medium—had not only survived it—but had risen superior to the elevation at which it antecedently stood. Under this artificial circulating medium the prosperity of the country had grown, even in war, to an unparalleled degree.

Having said thus much, on this particular subject, he would proceed to consider the main question before the committee. This question divided itself into the nature of the existing distresses, their extent, their tendency, and the remedies which it was advisable to apply to them. He was glad to find that the hon. and learned gentleman was not one of those who were disposed to take too gloomy a view of the nature of these distresses. For his own part, he apprehended that their immediate cause might be traced to the simple fact, that during the last two years, and particularly during the last year, the great and necessary articles of human consumption had been depreciated in value at least one half. The committee knew what effect such a depreciation must produce on any class of the community, when it affected that which constituted the wealth and the means of subsistence of that particular class. But when the change took place on that which formed nine-tenths of the general wealth of the community at large—when it affected not a single manufacturing or commercial interest, but the great mass of the farming property of the empire—the consequences must be proportionably extensive.

The question that came next to be considered, was, how far this depreciation of the produce of agriculture was of a permanent nature. The hon. and learned gentleman had very correctly stated, that it originated in the year 1813. It was natural to expect that the great harvest of that year, and the prospect which the approach of peace afforded, of opening the ports in the Baltic, would expose the farmer of this country, under circumstances of peculiar pressure, to a competition in the market with the foreign grower, free from the heavy burthen of taxation. It was consequently contemplated in 1814, to propose to parliament a measure calculated to avert this danger, and to protect by law the corn grown in this country, against the competition of foreign corn, until the price should arrive to such a point as to insure a fair protection in itself. During that session, however, parliament were not disposed to adopt the proposition in question. He did not state that as a reproach, though it certainly had been against his strong and expressed opinion. That, however, which was at first only alarm, turned soon after into menace. Nor did it stop at menace; for such a quantity of foreign corn was poured into the country, that, added to the abundant harvest of the year 1813, an effect was produced on the prices, which, though very naturally to be expected, was not the less distressing to those who were the sufferers by it. When once a momentum was given to such an operation, it was difficult (as had been ably stated by an hon. gentleman in the course of the debate) to say when it would cease. It certainly had inflicted on the country one of the heaviest calamities that could befal a nation. When once a diminution of agricultural property took place in a country, it was not merely that the general wealth was diminished, but the question arose, that most difficult arrangement which must convulse every community, in what way that loss should be distributed so as to be borne with the least inconvenience. It created an immediate conflict between the interests of the grower of corn, and the interests of those from whom he derived the means of growing it; and put the former in a situation in which he became unable to fulfil his contracts with the latter; contracts made at a time when they were justified by the price which agricultural produce then bore. And here he must observe, that although during the high prices of corn many rents had been raised, yet that had not been done generally. Rents had not been disturbed in consequence of the high prices to the extent imagined by the hon. and learned gentleman. If all the bargains concluded between tenant and landlord had been built on those extraordinary prices, the convulsion would have been still greater, and the return to a healthy state of affairs would have been rendered more difficult. On the contrary, in proportion as those bargains were smaller in number, the difficulty of adjustment, and of returning to a desirable state of things, was diminished. The committee were well aware, however, of the great difficulty and evil which had attended the distribution even of the loss that had occurred; and how it led all parties to try to throw as large a portion of it as they could on the exchequer. For this, he by no means blamed them. But in wisdom, they ought not to press beyond the true point, nor withdraw from the state those resources which were necessary for its protection and stability. If they drove their wish to an improper extent, they would only incur evils still more painful than those from which they were desirous to escape. One of his reasons for thinking that the distress, although he admitted that it was great, was not so great as by some it had been represented to be, was, that if corn, instead of falling from 120s. or 130s. to 56s. (the present average price) had fallen only to 80s. or 90s. no distress at all would have been exhibited. Up to the latest period preceding the change, the agriculture and the industry of the country in all its branches (those true sources of national wealth) were in the highest possible state. The change in the representative value of every article of human consumption had suddenly occasioned the change in that state of activity. But when it was argued that this change would be permanent; when it was argued that 56s. a quarter would continue to be the price of corn, he was at a loss to discover on what foundation such arguments were built.

This subject was viewed in very contradictory lights. The hon. member for Essex had stated more boldly than he (lord Castlereagh) thought the facts would bear out, that the agriculture of the country had been carried to such a pitch, that we had produced not only enough for our own consumption, but a considerable redundance of corn. This view of the subject arose, doubtless, out of the circum- stances of a particular year. If true at all, it was true only of a single year, and was not at all true of an average of years. The hon. member for Surrey, on the other hand, was so far from admitting that the low prices of corn proceeded from the redundance of produce, that he considered the produce as not equal to the demand; and attributed the low prices to the necessity under which the farmers laboured, of bringing their corn to market at an early part of the year, from which circumstance the hon. member seemed to expect famine instead of superfluity. For his own part, he did not exactly coincide with either opinion. Shut out as a foreign supply of corn was from the country, he could not persuade himself but that the price of corn would gradually rise to 80s., and that the profits of the agriculturist would rise with the profits of the other modes in which capital was employed in this country. If no other process had a tendency to produce this effect, it would be occasioned by the simple circumstance, that the charges on the farmer (which were heavy, and which, he admitted, it was most desirable to lighten, if it could be done consistently with the public interests) would of course cause some land to be put out of cultivation. Thence, it was obvious, that this would facilitate the return of prices to their proper state. He did not intend to say that in the meanwhile great pressure would not be felt. There might have been great and imprudent speculations during the facility of employing large capitals which the recent state of the circulation afforded. It was not unlikely that during the high prices, land was put into tillage, of a quality from which, in ordinary cases, no profit could be derived. It was also probable, that during the high prices good land had been abused, and that the soil which, by steady cultivation, might have produced for a course of years a reasonable return, had been forced by the temptation of high prices into an unnatural fertility, which was of course followed by a proportionate barrenness.

But he trusted that all these instances were but exceptions to the general rule. He did not believe that the circulation, occasioned by the restriction on cash payments at the bank, had gone so far beyond the ordinary circulation as to create any very unnatural effect, or to produce any very dangerous convulsion. Nor did he believe that the great mass of agriculture was in a tottering state. On the contrary, he was persuaded, that the great mass of agriculture in this country was founded on a solid basis. It was secured from the only enemy which could beat it down—foreign competition; from the domestic competition arising from the other modes of employing capital, it was also secure; and he was persuaded, that the price of corn would soon return to the state which would afford the grower a fair remuneration. There were no other circumstances in the state of the country which indicated a decay of the national prosperity. He did not mean to deny that there was an immense pressure on the country, and that very considerable difficulties arose out of the peculiar situation in which it was placed. But to allege that this indicated a decay of national wealth and prosperity, was, in his opinion, not to seize the true character of existing circumstances, or to describe the real situation of the country as it stood. Such a supposed deterioration of property, and sacrifice of interests could never exist, without showing itself in a thousand different ways, and in no way more conspicuously than through the medium of the revenue. He had watched the returns of the revenue with the greatest anxiety, in order, if they existed, to discover the symptoms of the case alleged; but he had the satisfaction to say, that down to the very last week to which the accounts had been made out, no such symptoms appeared, but that the revenue, in all its branches, had been fully maintained, and in some of them had considerably increased, as compared with the corresponding periods of former years. He did not state this to refute the fact that considerable pressure existed, or to prevent the committee from attempting to mitigate it. But he entreated the committee to look at the whole state of things with a firm and steady eye, and not to despair of the resources and energy of the country; and he trusted they would speedily see a termination to that general suffering which had arisen from the change of prices. The circumstances which were to produce that amelioration of the state of agriculture were in fact already operating. An hon. gentleman who had spoken early in the debate, had stated that corn had a general tendency to rise over the United Kingdom. He (lord Castlereagh) understood that in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh wheat had risen to 72s. a quarter. If it was true, as he believed, that it had so risen in Scotland, no one could imagine that it would long remain at 56s. a quarter throughout the rest of the island.

In his opinion, the major part of the arguments which had been deduced from our situation in 1792 were founded on false assumptions. We were now in a very different situation from that in which we were at that period. Unquestionably we were subject to burthens to which we were not at that time subject; those burthens must affect the prices of all the articles which were the produce of the community at large, but they would not prevent the produce of the agriculturist from finding its level with the produce of the other classes of the community. He saw no reason to doubt that at no very distant period, corn would rise to a fair remunerating price to the grower; and if it should get up to 80s. or 90s. a quarter, he would be glad to know where would then be the distress? While he said this, he understood and admitted that there was another cause operating at the present moment, which had a great tendency to retard the action of the remedy, and to prevent the price of agricultural produce from rising. Coincident with the extreme depreciation of corn had been an alteration in the state of the circulating medium, which affected the whole credit of the individuals concerned, and impeded the operation of that confidence which was indispensable to them. A large part of that circulating medium had been withdrawn, and had disappeared, and with it (which was the most important consideration) had gone a large portion of the confidence that had heretofore existed. But was this diminution of the circulating medium founded on principles of a permanent nature? Would it admit of no mitigation? The return of peace would eventually lead to the return of old maxims—to the return of those common principles on which the circulation of every country ought to be regulated. All the banks in the country, from the great national bank to the smallest private bank that existed, must feel that the period was rapidly approaching when the country might again possess a larger amount of circulating medium.

His right hon. friend last night, in opening to the House his reasons for proposing an extension of the period during which cash payments were to be restricted at the bank of England, had stated the double object which he had in view, the acceleration of the return of cash payments, and the benefit of the country in the interim. With respect to the first object, he (lord Castlereagh) had last night endeavoured to impress the House with the necessity of not accelerating the resumption of cash payments, until the causes which had occasioned the disappearance of specie had ceased to exist, and until that specie had returned into the country. For, although the bank of England was a very proper instrument to feel the circulation of specie when it actually existed, no corporate body could be deemed a proper instrument to replenish with specie a country like this, when it was drained of all that had once been in circulation. It would, therefore, be a most dangerous experiment to suffer the bank to open their coffers until the commerce of the country had brought back a quantity of the precious metals in aid of their operations. Unless due caution were adopted on this subject, a shock or convulsion would be occasioned much more dangerous to the country than any evils that could possibly arise from the substitution of a currency of another description.

So much for the necessity of postponing the resumption of cash payments at all. As for the period of postponement, if the House did not clearly see its way to the restoration of cash payments in less than two years, it certainly was much better to say so at once, than to make one year the term of the measure at present, with the view of adding another in the next session. Besides, another view of the advantages resulting from this extension of the restriction of cash payments, and from its consequences, was, that it would go a great way towards remedying the inconveniences which the country would otherwise feel by the rejection of the property tax. Whether his majesty's government had been right or wrong in pressing that measure for the adoption of parliament, was not then the question. They had done so on the principle of abstaining for two years from raising any loan, and thus of giving to the country an indirect, and in their opinion a greater relief. Parliament had preferred the direct relief. It would in consequence become necessary to borrow money for the public service, and the extension of the bank restriction act would afford greater facilities for doing so. On the whole he was persuaded that if by this measure parliament gave to the bank of England and to the country banks a confidence which would induce them to act on a liberal, thought not on an improvident principle in their advances, the existing distresses would be in a great measure relieved.

With respect to the last topic touched on by the hon. and learned gentleman, it was too large a question to discuss incidentally, and at that late hour of the night. The hon. and learned gentleman, after considering the various other sources of relief which presented themselves to his mind, had alluded to the expediency of resorting to the sinking fund. He (lord Castlereagh) did not protest against an application to that fund under any circumstances whatever. But he maintained that such an application would be consistent with political and financial wisdom only when the credit of the country should be so raised by the operation of that fund, as to render doubtful the question, whether or not its existence in its then accumulated state was beneficial or otherwise. He hoped parliament would never consent to take from that fund until their judgment was satisfied that the fund, as compared with the debt, was sufficient to defend the public credit from the effect of the debt, and to enable the country to make those exertions, which, at some future period, she might be called upon to make. The sinking fund had saved the country—had carried it through its difficulties; and he trusted parliament would never approach it without a lively recollection of the benefits which it had dispensed. This, he repeated, was too important a subject to be discussed that night, but he entreated the committee to recollect the immense magnitude of the debt, and to consider that if they left the operation to the small progress which a sinking fund of six millions could make on a debt of seven hundred and fifty, they would in fact abandon the notion of making that fund effectually operative.

He begged pardon of the committee for having trespassed so long on their patience, but there was one subject, our trade with South America, which he had nearly forgotten to mention, and on which he begged to say a few words. He had the satisfaction to state, that our present commercial communications with South America were very considerable. There was hardly a port in South America with which we had not a commercial inter- course. No effort, consistent with their duty in other respects, should be neglected on the part of his majesty's ministers to foster this intercourse. Parliament and the country might rely on it, that it was a subject which occupied their constant attention. Great progress had already been made. He was persuaded that South America was a growing market for British produce and manufactures, and no exertion compatible with national honour should be wanting to cherish the connexion.

said, that the war in the Peninsula created a demand for agricultural produce, to a considerable extent, in Ireland. The termination of that war had, consequently, a great effect in reducing the demand. Another source of the present distresses was to be found in the delay of the corn bill, which induced persons to pour as much grain as possible into the market here, for the purpose of avoiding the protecting duties. At the time that this importation took place, the market was already loaded with foreign corn sufficient to supply all England for a year. It also operated to the great discouragement of tillage, and in that way retarded the operation of a measure decidedly beneficial. He differed from his hon. friend, who had moved the resolutions, as to the effects of the warehousing system, which he thought it would not be right to depart from. He doubted the probability that corn would ever be stored to such an extent as to render that apprehension alone a reason for abandoning the principle altogether. He agreed with his hon. friend in thinking that many of the evils were temporary, in case they wore provided for by proper regulations, but if left to themselves they would become permanent.

rose to take notice of one or two points of the noble lord's speech, without intending to enter into the discussion of the question before the committee at the late hour of the night to which it had extended. One of these points concerned the income tax, and the other the sinking fund; with regard to both of which, he wished to express his dissent from the opinions of the noble lord.

made a short reply to that part of the speech of the hon. and learned gentleman who opened the debate, which discussed the effect of warehousing foreign grain. He wished that British capital were applied to the purchase of British grain, and the consequent encouragement of British agriculture, rather than to the importation of foreign grain and the encouragement of foreign agriculture. He argued that nothing was so injurious as rapid fluctuations in the price of corn, and explained the mode in which the measures which he proposed would remedy this evil.

On the motion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the House then resumed, and the Chairman reported progress, and obtained leave to sit again on Monday the 29th instant.