to make the debt greater. It was said by some, that a Sinking Fund was necessary to intimidate our enemies; but how was that possible, if it was applied to the liquidation of the debt? If the present Sinking Fund were allowed to go on, he was sure it would be applied at some future time to the same objects which had absorbed its predecessors, and there would be nothing of it left but a reduced surplus of two or three hundred thousand pounds. He was quite surprised to hear his right honorable friend opposite (Mr. Huskis son) support the principle of the noble Marquis of lending out money to parishes. It was so contrary to all reason, that he was sure it must be abandoned. He wished to say a few words more upon the subject of taxation. There were two descriptions of taxes; one of which fell upon the producer, and, if the producer came to that house to ask for relief, he would say that the house should shut its doors upon him. He would say to him, You have had the power in your own hands of avoiding the tax, and if you have not regulated the produce to the demand, you must bear the consequence.' But there was another description of taxation, which fell entirely upon the consumer; and if he came in distress, they ought to throw open their doors to relieve him. His complaints were of a very different nature, and deserved the utmost attention. Well, then, if they took off the Malt tax, he should say they took it off the consumer. If they took off the tax on soap, and it was asked whether they took it off the agricultural producer or the consumer, he should say the consumer. But this was an argument with him why taxation ought to be reduced. He saw taxation pressing in this manner upon the helpless consumer, not indeed with the reduction spoken of by his honorable and learned Friend, but it did press so as to destroy the comforts and the means of a large class of the people from whom it ought to be removed. It had been said that he denied taxation to be an evil; on the contrary he held it to be a very great evil, and only differed with his friends as to the effect which it produced in certain cases. Many gentlemen seemed to think that the paper system could not have been carried on without a depreciation of the currency; but this he considered a mistake. It might be a wholesome system notwithstanding the measures of restriction. It had been said that the agriculturists had received high rents during the war. So they had, but they had higher prices to pay for all articles not produced by themselves. The high rents were of no benefit to them, except. by comparison with the state of the stockholder; and in that point of view, undoubtedly, the high rents were a benefit to the landholder; for the stockholder sustained a loss by the altered view of money, inasmuch as his dividend was not increased proportionably with the depreciation. On the whole, he was perfectly satisfied that, in a VOL. XX. Pam. ÑO. XXXIX. T 2 public point of view, the stockholder had been a loser rather than a gainer by the transaction." The agriculturists are much indebted to Mr. Curwen for his exertions in their behalf. We observe that the Earl of Liverpool in his speech in the House of Lords, on 26th of February, laid great stress on the fact of the agricultural interest being in an equal state of depression in other countries very differently circumstanced from our own, and as a consequence of this discovery, argued that taxes had not caused the depression in this country, but that it had arisen here as elsewhere, from superabundance of produce. If all this be granted, what does it avail him?-Taxes, he will not deny, aggravate the distress. We have the means.-It is in our power, from the blessing of an existent high taxation, to relieve the agriculturists in this country. (Happy Britain, that can thus derive advantage from being highly taxed!) There is certainly no denying, that if seven or six millions of taxes were to be taken off, if the amount levied from each acre of ground were to be reduced from 3s. 6d. to even 3s. only, it would be a grant bonus to the landed interest. ६ I This the poor farmers are not so ignorant as not to see, though they are not sanguine enough to expect such a relief from the present ministers, or such sort of independent gentlemen as Messrs. Gooch, S. Wortley, Wodehouse, and D. Acland or Bankes." So Mr. Gooch "has listened to all the arguments in favor of the two Lords of the admiralty, and is perfectly persuaded that 2 Lord Londonderry will not surely miss this opportunity of urging how evidently preferable is a state of heavy taxation, and how justly he described us as "ignorantly impatient" of this great advantage. 2 Mr. G. Bennett, in reference to this last-mentioned member, made the following apposite remarks in a late debate. "He should like to see Mr. Bankes present himself at one of those county meetings; (hear, and much laughter) which, in his usual manner, he had in so sneering a way adverted to: for he would venture to say, that no greater detection of the character of a human being ever yet took place, than in such an assembly would be made, of the character of the honorable Gentleman. He would find that the jury of public opinion was of a very different nature from a jury of Parliament; (hear, hear)-and that if his real character was made known, instead of his being held up, as he (Mr. Bennett) had with astonishment so often known him to be held up, in that House, for the advocate of retrenchment, and of political improvement, he would be told, that while he watched with a patient and scrutinising eye the appropriation of a few paltry pence, or shillings, he gave his aid to an unlimited squandering of guineas: he would, in a word, be at length discovered to be a staunch supporter of the Government in every measure of immoderate expenditure; however he might at times have been the advocate of some petty system of insignificant retrenchment." (Hear, hear.) 3 Mr. H. Sumner did not vote for the reduction of the two Lords of the Admiralty. there is no necessity for them." What ought the public to think of him and the other independent country gentlemen, as they call themselves, who have annually voted that ministers could not do without them? No fresh reason has arisen this session for their discontinuance they were equally unjustifiable appointments six years ago, yet he and those other mirrors of patriotism, whom we have often enough had occasion to name in this pamphlet, thought the relief of the country, as long as the landed interest was thriving, or likely to thrive, a very secondary consideration, to the keeping in of their own party:-were these men, we ask, actuated in their conduct on Friday last, by principle, or constrained to turn their backs upon themselves, by the combined influence of selfishness and shame? They cannot pretend that any new circumstances, before unperceived by them, are now exposed-and can they explain to their constituents why they have for six years obstinately supported all the extravagance of ministers? It is distressing to reflect on their conduct; and now we suppose they will argue that the House of Commons clearly' represents the country, inasmuch as it has begun six years after an universal petitioning for relief, and when the personal interests of the majority in the house are vitally affected, to second the public voice by voting for a reduction in the Admiralty establishment. The impression the late divisions on Lord Althorp's motion, and on Mr. Calcraft's motion for repeal of Salt tax,2 have made upon the country, may be learned from the following resolution at a Cambridge county meeting. "CAMBRIDGE COUNTY MEETING.-A numerous meeting of the freeholders and inhabitants of Cambridgeshire was held on Thursday, pursuant to a requisition to the High Sheriff, to take into consideration the present disastrous state of the agricultural interest, and the propriety of petitioning parliament for relief.'—Mr. Pryme moved resolutions for a petition to Parliament for relief.The Rev. G. A. Brown doubted the expediency of a petition without some mention of reform.-Mr. F. K. Eagle, after a short address, moved as an amendment to the original resolutions— "That from what has taken place during the present and preceding sessions, it is the firm and decided opinion of this meeting, that any petition to the lower House of Parliament, as at present constituted, for relief from the difficulties under which the nation is sinking, would be entirely vain and fruitless.' "Mr. Samuel Wells seconded the amendment.—Mr. Beals read I We must not be misunderstood. That the House of Commons represents the country, possibly might be ARGUED from other premises: but we deny that any such conclusion can be drawn from the division of Sir M. W. Ridley's motion. 2 Mr. Gooch and Wodehouse voted against the repeal of Salt tax. a letter written by the Duke of Bedford, in which the noble Duke declared that it was useless to petition the House of Commons as it is now constituted, for their petitions were year after year disregarded, and thrown aside as waste paper. The High Sheriff put the amendment, which was carried by a considerable majority; consequently the resolutions for a petition fell to the ground.-Thanks were voted to the High Sheriff, who returned his acknowledgments, after which the meeting was dissolved." WE have only just lighted on the following defence of his parliamentary behavior, made last session by Mr. S. Wortley, on the debate on the Agricultural Horse tax. Though it is out of place here, we cannot avoid presenting our readers with it. Mr. S. Wortley said, "he did not think himself liable to the charge of inconsistency which had been made against those who voted for the Estimates and not for the tax. The honorable member for Aberdeen made his propositions to the house founded on his own statements, which were contradicted by ministers. Now here were two parties whose statements were opposed to each other; and he (Mr. W.) and his friends had been in the habit of giving their confidence to ministers. This he took to be a very different case to the repeal of a tax, where every man exercised his own judgment as to its necessity." Was it not possible then to vote for economy and retrenchment without blindly confiding in Mr. Hume? Did it follow, as a natural consequence, that because Mr. Wortley preferred ministers to the member for Aberdeen, he must not "exercise his own judgment as to the necessity" for those large establishments, and that profuse expenditure, which were so universally complained of? Could he not of himself have proposed from time to time, some reductions on the Estimates? His constituents have long ago been satisfied, that an obstinate determination to gratify his own vanity, at the expense of their interests, by upholding ministers through thick and thin, has been the only cause which has incapacitated him from the performance of such a duty. The printer will not give us time to do justice either to Dr. Phillimore or Mr. C. W. Wynn. The Times newspaper has called the public attention to the consistent vote of the former against the repeal of the salt tax, and we shall have something to say in our next number on the absence of the latter from the debate on Sir M. W. Ridley's motion. In the mean time, we take leave of our readers, and fondly indulge in the pleasing persuasion that we have undertaken a work not unworthy of their patronage. END OF NO. XXXIX. |