"His Majesty laments that he is unable to announce to you the prospect of a reconciliation between the Princes of the House of Braganza. His Majesty has not yet deemed it expedient to re-establish upon their ancient footing his Majesty's diplomatic relations with the kingdom of Portugal; but the numerous embarrassments arising from the continued interruption of these relations, increase his Majesty's desire to effect the termination of so serious an evil. "Gentlemen of the House of Commons, "His Majesty has directed the estimates for the current year to be laid before you. They have been framed with every attention to economy, and it will be satisfactory to you to learn, that his Majesty will be enabled to make a considerable reduction in the amount of the public expenditure, without impairing the efficiency of our naval or military establishments. "We are commanded by his Majesty to inform you, that, although the National Income, during last year, has not attained the full amount at which it had been estimated, the diminution is not such as to cause any doubt as to the future prosperity of the revenue. "My Lords and Gentlemen, "His Majesty commands us to acquaint you, that his attention has been of late earnestly directed to various important considerations connected with improvements in the general administration of the law. "His Majesty has directed that measures shall be submitted for your deliberation, of which some are calculated, in the opinion of his Majesty, to facilitate and expedite the course of justice in different parts of the United Kingdom; and others appear to be necessary preliminaries to a revision of the practice and proceedings of the Superior Courts. "We are commanded to assure you, that his Majesty feels confident that you will give your best attention and assistance to subjects of such deep and lasting concern to the well-being of his people. "His Majesty commands us to inform you, that the export in the last year of British produce and manufactures has exceeded that of any former year. "His Majesty laments that, notwithstanding this indication of active commerce, distress should prevail among the agricultural and manufacturing classes in some parts of the United Kingdom. "It would be most gratifying to the paternal feelings of his Majesty to be enabled to propose for your consideration measures calculated to remove the difficulties of any portion of his subjects, and at the same time compatible with the general and permanent interests of his people. "It is from a deep solicitude for those interests that his Majesty is impressed with the necessity of acting with extreme caution in reference to this important subject. "His Majesty feels assured that you will concur with him in assigning due weight to the effect of unfavourable seasons, and to the operation of other causes which are beyond the reach of legislative control or remedy. "Above all, his Majesty is convinced that no pressure of temporary difficulty will induce you to relax the determination which you have uniformly manifested to maintain inviolate the public credit, and thus to uphold the high character and the per manent welfare of the country." In the House of Lords the Ad- it did admit to unfavourable seasons. Unfavourable seasons did, of course, operate upon grain; but was their effect usually visible in a reduction of price-did a bad harvest make corn cheap? The evil was so notorious, that nobody but his majesty's ministers doubted its existence; and how could even they feasibly pretend to deny it, if they only cast their eyes around, and saw the counties spontaneously pouring on them every kind of sollicitation for relief. Why, then, was inquiry evaded or denied? It was not true that the causes of distress were placed beyond the reach of parliament. It was parliament that had produced them, and yet ministers now wished parliament to disregard the effects, and treat the public distress with indifference— as a matter which did not concern them. He would not now enter into any specific details, of those causes, because he meant, at an early day, to bring forward a special motion for inquiry, and therefore he had offered an amendment which pledged the House to nothing more than inquiry, giving the House an opportunity of regaining its character with the country, and of preventing the present feeling of distress from being converted, by the supineness of parliament, and its vacillations corresponding with the vacillations of ministerial necessity or expediencies, into a deep and dangerous feeling of disaffection. dress was moved by the duke of Buccleuch, and seconded by lord Saltoun, but it was not carried without a debate and a division. The opposition came from the former friends of the ministry, who maintained that the expressions in the speech referring to the existence of partial and temporary distress, were untrue and delusive, and that the country was entitled to an immediate inquiry into the causes of the suffering which every where prevailed. Earl Stanhope, accordingly, moved, as an amendment, "That this House views, with the deepest sorrow and anxiety, the severe distress which now afflicts the country, and will immediately proceed to examine into its cause, and into the means of effectually providing the necessary relief." His lordship said, that a speech more inappropriate and unsatisfactory had never been addressed to any public assembly. It spoke of the prevalence of distress "in some parts" of the country: but what part of the country was it, in which ministers had not found distress prevailing, and that, too, general, not partial? The kingdom was in a state of universal distress, one likely to be unequalled in its duration, as it was intolerable in its pressure, unless parliament thought fit to inquire for a remedy. It was not confined to agriculture; it had extended to manufactures, to trade, and commerce. All these great interests had never before, at one time, been at so low an ebb, nor in a condition which demanded more loudly the prompt and energetic interference of parliament. The speech found not only mere partial distress in some parts of the country, but ascribed what Lord Goderich, in opposing the amendment, said, that the true object of its noble mover plainly enough was, to get rid of the alterations lately introduced into our commercial system, and to unsettle the basis on which the currency now stood. For the first, he had never been able to extract from the opponents of what was called "free trade," what that was which they denounced under that obnoxious name. The noble mover of the amendment seemed to mean by it, the refusal to foster domestic agriculture by prohibiting the importation of foreign wool. But that refusal, be it right or wrong in itself, was no modern invention; for it was not till 1819 that the importation of foreign wool had been at all prohibited, and the duty then laid on was imposed merely for purposes of revenue, not as a protection to trade. On the currency question, again, the theory of those who thought with earl Stanhope was, that the return to a metallic currency had, in effect, added to our taxation. But here, too, facts were the other way. In 1815, the taxes amounted to 80,000,000l. Taking the depreciation of the currency at its highest rational estimate, viz. 30 per cent, the same taxes should, in a restored currency, amount to 56,000,000l. Unless they exceeded that sum, they had not been added to. Now, in point of fact, the eighty millions of the depreciated currency of 1815, did just amount to fiftysix millions in the restored currency of 1826, being the very ratio of 30 per cent in which the currency had been restored. Therefore, the taxes had not increased with the return to a metallic currency. Between 1823 and 1827, nine millions of taxes had been reduced; yet the loss in 1827 had been only three millions, and but one million in the amount of taxes collected last year, shewing such an increased consumption of taxed articles, that was, such an improvement in the condition of the consumers, or such an increase in their numbers-it was indifferent which was the true explanation— as made up for the reduction in the duties. Errors like these, in matters of fact, lay at the bottom of the amendment, and, therefore, he would support the government against hostility founded on such mischievous delusions. That government he did not wish to embarrass, or to see embarrassed, although he had no connection with it. If he ever had entertained any personal feelings in regard to the present ministry-and he was sure he had never entertained angry ones they had all been buried by the passing of the Catholic bill. The duke of Richmond, the earl of Carnarvon, and the earl of Winchilsea spoke in favour of the amendment. In reply to lord Goderich's statements regarding the wool-trade, the former said, he would repeat what he had often before urged, that wool was made an exception, and the only exception, to the system of protecting our native produce. The farmers had, at this moment, three years' stock of wool upon hand, which they could not dispose of except at ruinously low prices; and was it any satisfactory answer to their complaints, that the system, by which they were ruined, had been part of the system of their ancestors. Neither were the farmers the only sufferers. The distress had laid hold of the manufacturers; and, above all, the condition of the labourers was one of alarming deprivation. Their wretched existence, if existence it could be called, through the aid of parish-officers, was a subject which would force itself on the notice of the legislature; and though he laid his account with being in a minority, he would vote for the amendment, were it only to convince the distressed manufacturers and labourers, to whom government, it appeared, had no answer to make but "patience," that there were some members of their lordships' House by whom their interests were not neglected. now. The earl of Carnarvon declared, that the Address called upon them to pledge themselves to statements which were inconsistent with truth, and that he would never lend his countenance to the fallacious and cold-blooded representations of mere partial distress set forth in the speech. That speech said not one word about the true causes of what the country was suffering; but it gravely desired them to take into consideration "the state of the seasons!" The seasons of 1816 and 1817 had been much worse than that of 1829. According to this doctrine, therefore, the distress of 1818 ought, at least, to have equalled that which existed Yet that year was one of great prosperity; commerce and agriculture were rapidly on the increase; for the government of that day were wise and practical; and, alarmed for the effect of their own operations, they had issued 7,000,000l. of Exchequer bills to meet the exigency, while three millions of small notes were issued by the Bank of England. The cause of the apparently hopeless continuance of the present distress lay much deeper, and no small part of it, he was convinced, had been owing to the change in the currency. There had been many periods of distress formerly, but they had soon passed away; now, however, the kingdom was placed in very different circumstances, as the circulation was no longer commensurate with the demand. In no other country was gold exclusively a standard; nor did he believe that it could at this moment be obtained, in any quarter of the world, to meet an immediate and general demand. There had been a reduction, of taxation from eighty-four to about fifty-six millions, and yet the pressure was found to be the same as before. If a silver standard were adopted, keeping gold for circulation only for convenience, the resources of the country would be emancipated from the artificial fetters in which they were now bound, and the political economists would find, to their no small surprise, that these resources were sufficient to feed the population which was now starving. It was impossible that the poorer classes could be allowed to continue in the state in which they were now suffering. If the nation had no confidence in the ministry, they had confidence in parliament; but even that confidence would not long continue, unless they saw some serious attempt made to relieve the distress under. which they laboured. To refuse even to take that distress into consideration, said lord Winchilsea, would force on the country the opinion that the House was unable to legislate for the public good. A spirit was springing up in different parts of the country, for forming associations, not to lay the griev ances of the people before parliament, but to propose remedies of their own, and redress their own wrongs; and to that spirit their lordships would be supplying encouragement if they refused to institute an inquiry into the nature and causes of the existing distress. The duke of Wellington said, in answer, that much more had been made out of the expressions in the speech, concerning the effect of bad seasons, than they could be fairly made to mean. It was not there set down as the only cause of distress; it was alluded to as one circumstance, not to be lost sight of; and as there certainly had been one bad harvest, and another which had not been got in without unusual expense, these, undoubtedly, were facts to be taken into consideration. The speech said no more. Another cause of distress was to be found in the state of our manufactures, and it was to this his majesty alluded, when he spoke of the operation of causes beyond the reach of legislative control. Were not competition at home and abroad, the introduction of machinery, and the general adoption of steam, calculated to produce distress among our manufacturers? Yet could parliament prevent competition? Could it prohibit the use of machinery, and the application of steam, all of which, by throwing labourers out of employment, produced distress? He was satisfied, moreover, that the distress was not universal-that there were parts of the country entirely free from it. The exports of last year had been greater than they had ever been before; and there was not a canal or a rail-way in the country, which did not present an increase of traffic. It was true, no doubt, that all this had been done at small profits; but profits there must have been, otherwise the traffic would not exist. He would ask, too, if any distress existed among the retail dealers, who formed a very large class? Were those distressed persons, who could pay the rents of the new houses which were everywhere springing up. Pressure upon the country there certainly was; but not so great as to prevent it from rising, though slowly. The country was not stationary ; much less was it falling; it was improving. Neither, said his grace, could he agree with the supporters of the amendment, that the distress, such as it was, was to be ascribed to the supposed restriction of the circulating medium by the return to a metallic currency. There was no foundation in fact for such an opinion: the largest circulation, which had ever been known in this country during the Bank restriction, was 64,000,000l. The sum was thus made up: Bank of England notes.. £30,000,000 Country bank notes ................ 23,000,000 4,000,000 7,000,000 Gold Silver.. |