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They had now much to look formuch to hope for. He could not sit down without expressing his opinion on this particular part of the subject; and if he wished that any part of what he said should be heard, or should reach the members of the catholic body, it was this: he conscientiously believed that in this, as well as in the other house of parliament, there were many persons who had voted, or who were about to vote, for the bill before them, but who were nevertheless as warm friends to them, and to their cause, as any persons in this world. This he wished the catholics to know and to be convinced of; and he wished them, moreover, particularly to place their full confidence in those who were their real friends. He believed the bill could not succeed in the object which it had in view, for the grounds he had stated; and that it would never be called into action, because it would be evaded, or because it would be rendered unnecessary. In this belief, he concluded what he had to say. Having stated his objections to the bill, he should not oppose it in its future stages with so much pertinacity as he should otherwise have felt it his duty to display; and he sat down in the fervent hope that the measure to which he had alluded, might have the effect of restoring peace and tranquillity to Ireland, and prosperity to its people.

The Earl of Harrowby said, that in the objections the noble marquis had made to the bill, it appeared to him that he did not deny the existence of the danger which it proposed to remedy, but he doubted whether its operation would be permanently effectual.

It said, that the enactments of the bill might be evaded. It doubtless would not be difficult for ingenious persons to find means of evading this or any other law; but he entertained a most sanguine hope, that when the association should have been declared illegal, it would no longer be continued. It could not be said that government had proposed the measure hastily. Ministers had waited for eighteen months to see whether the association would conduct itself in such a way as to justify the tolerance of it; but finding that the very reverse had happened, they were compelled to call upon government to put it down. Supposing that the association had been allowed to continue in its course, what would have been the consequence? Who could doubt that it would have been met by other associations? He was firmly persuaded, that if government had not adopted measures for the suppression of the association, there would have been not one rival parliament, but two on the other side of the channel. He wished the bill to pass, because he thought it was the duty of parliament to provide, as well as it could under existing circumstances, for the tranquillity of Ireland. Whenever he had attempted, however feebly, to advocate the cause of the Roman-catholics, he did it, not so much with a view to their exclusive benefit, as because he considered that their admission to civil rights was fully as much for the advantage of the protestant state-ay, and of the protestant church too-as for the catholics themselves. Whenever that question should be again discussed in that house, as he trusted it soon

would,

would, and he should then have the pleasure of combating, side by side, with his noble friend opposite, he wished that it should come before them with every advantage-he wished that, instead of being obliged to rack his invention to find excuses for their conduct, interpretations for their expressions, and palliatives for their deliberate resolutions, which he grieved to say, had done the catholic cause more injury than ten thousand calumnies of its enemies could have effected-he wished, instead of this, to be able to show those persons who doubted the loyalty of the catholics, that, however they had been misled by persons, some perhaps meaning well, and some perhaps meaning ill, they had immediately, in obedience to the declared will of parliament, abandoned the attitude which every body must allow was more or less menacing in which they had placed themselves. The present measure would afford the catholics an opportunity of proving, that however they had been misled, they would nevertheless readily submit to the authority of parliament. By so submitting, they would advantage their cause more than all the arguments of their most able advocates could do. To conclude, he supported the bill-he would not say notwithstanding-but because of his attachment to the catholic cause.

The house then divided. The numbers were-content, 146; not content, 44; majority, 102.

Adjourned at a quarter before twelve o'clock.

House of Commons, March 3.Sir T. Lethbridge brought in a bill for making a ship-canal from Seaton Bay, in the county of De

von, to Bridgewater Bay, on the Bristol Channel. The bill was read a first time; and on the question that it be read a second time,

Sir T. Lethbridge shortly explained the nature of the proposed canal. It was intended that it should admit of vessels of 200 tons burden; and one of the chief advantages which it held out to the public was the time which would be saved, and the risk to men and cargoes which would be avoided by its affording a way to ships without the necessity of their passing the dangerous navigation of the land's-end. The plan had been submitted to, and had received the approbation of, many persons who were best enabled to pronounce upon it, and they had all agreed that it would be highly advantageous. He wished it to be particularly understood, that this was in no way like the many delusive schemes which were now so frequently got up. He hoped he should be the last man to advocate any such schemes, because he believed they were all highly injurious to the country. whole of the capital required for this canal had been actually subscribed, and amounted to 200,000l. The canal would pass through a very considerable extent of country, some of which was of a poor, and others of a rich description. The number of persons over whose property it was to pass, was about 1,000. Of these, 918 had been applied to, and only 50 of that number offered any objection to it. It was to pass near and through several large towns, the commerce of which would be considerably benefited by it. The coasting trade would also be made more

The

secure,

secure, because it was intended to form spacious bays at each end of the canal, one of which would offer a harbour to ships in the British, and the other to those in the Bristol channel, in case of storms; and lastly, by the facility of communication which it would afford, the traffic between England and Ireland would be materially improved.

Sir J. Yorke feared that the proposed canal might have a detrimental effect on the coasting trade, and, by shortening it, destroy that service which had for many years been so excellent a nursery for seamen, and contributed in a very great degree to the brilliant victories which had distinguished the arms of this nation by sea.

The bill was read a second time, and ordered to be committed.

Mr. Maberly, after presenting a petition from the parish of St. Marylebone, for the repeal of the assessed taxes, rose, in pursuance of his notice, to bring forward an express motion upon the subject. To judge by the state of the house, the honourable gentleman said (which was remarkably thin at that moment), a stranger would almost imagine that some subject of very slight interest was to be discussed: of this, however, he was certain, that any person who would go from house to house throughout the country, would find nine voices in it out of ten in favour of the proposal which he was bringing forward. Concurring with the principles laid down by the right hon. the chancellor of the exchequer, on the subjects in general of foreign policy and free trade, still he was far from satisfied with the relief which the

present plan of that right hon. gentleman afforded. He did not say that the country was distressed, but still it had a right to all the relief which could be given; and he did contend, that the right hon. gentleman's project fell short of the principles which he professed. With respect, for example, to the article of hemp; there was a reduction on that commodity, but not a sufficient one. By bringing the raw article to England at a low price, our own artizans would derive a profit from the manufacture of it; but the duty, which had been 30, still remained at 15 per cent. Again, for the reduction upon coffee-the article was ill selected. There were a hundred petitions upon the table to repeal the duty on twenty other commodities, and not one to repeal the duty on coffee. The next item in the chancellor of the exchequer's list was wine; here, was a reduction, but not of the kind which the country wanted. An attempt had been made to call wine an article of necessity-something or other hinted about "the sick." He left that argument to those who thought they could make any thing of it; he considered wine to be merely an article of luxury, and an article the repeal of duty on which would not benefit the labouring classes a farthing. While necessaries were out of men's reach, it was not a time to repeal a tax upon superfluities. The right hon. the chancellor of the exchequer talked of the benefits of foreign trade; an increased consumption at home causing necessarily fresh demands for our own produce at home; but did the hon. gentleman really think

for

for the question of increased consumption came to that-that, because he had reduced the duty on

wine one-half, every family in England, where they had drank one bottle would now drink two?

British spirits formed another item among the reductions; and then there came the plea of smuggling and yet he was not satisfied. For the measure of last session reducing the duty on Scotch spirits, it had merely served to carry all the smugglers straight to the border. To put half a crown duty upon spirits in Scotland, while the duty in England was half a guinea, was actually to give a bounty to the contraband trade. The present measure, at best, was but doing things by halves; for the reduction was not sufficient to prevent smuggling: if any thing could be done, it must be by an equalization of duties. But his main objection to the measure was this ;-there were commodities out of number, a reduction of the duties upon which would have gone as far to diminish smuggling as this reduction upon spirits; and yet the right hon. the chancellor of the exchequer elected peculiarly to cheapen that particular article the use of which tended pre-eminently to demoralize and destroy our population; if this was getting rid of smuggling, which he denied, it was certainly meeting one evil by the introduction of another. The repeal of the duty on rum, he (Mr. Maberly) would leave to those who understood the matter better than he did himself. In the repeal of the duty on cider he concurred; in many counties it would be a convenience to the lower classes. Upon iron, as upon hemp,

1825.

he did not think that the reduction had gone far enough; and he repeated, that a reduction of the duties on tea, tobacco, soap, candles, silk, and a great variety of other articles, would have been more useful than the reductions which had been granted upon wine and British spirits. But he now came to the assessed taxes, which formed the main object of his motion; and he had no hesitation in saying that, with what had been done upon that subject, the country was entirely dissatisfied. The main desire was to get rid of the house and window taxes: for the rest of the duties, he was chiefly anxious about them, inasmuch as that an entire repeal, by getting rid of the commissionership, would save the country just 300,000l. a year. On the propriety of repealing direct taxes always in preference to indirect ones, there could not be a question; the right hon. gentleman, in his speech on the budget two years since, had admitted it. By getting rid of the assessed taxes, we got rid of all the machinery connected with them; of all that system of visitation and vexation which people thought more of than the money which they paid, and for the means of doing that-apart from all surplus-he had a fund instantly at command for it-the sinking fund, He was scarcely less anxious to get rid of the sinking fund than he was for the repeal of the taxes, so completely did he look upon it as a delusion in every view that regarded the public service. With all our sinking fund, 5,000,000%. a year, the national debt was greater now than it had been in the year 1815. With the assist

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ance of that most incomprehensible measure, the half-pay consolidation scheme, we had got our debt, from 868,000,000l. in 1816, to 880,000,000l. in 1825. The late Mr. Ricardo had said truly, that he would trust no government with a sinking fund; that it would always be seized by the minister whenever he wanted it; in fact, it had been so it had been seized by the right hon. gent. Formerly, we had been told that it was for the daily purchases that the sinking fund was valuable; that those purchases (though they meant nothing) kept it up on public credit. Now those daily purchases were thought less necessary, and part of the fund was put to other purposes. He did not mean to deny that the charge upon our debt had been diminished. Though its nominal amount was greater, the reduction of the four and five per cents. had lessened the cost to the country. But how had this saving been effected by the operation of the sinking fund?-Not a jot. It was the consequence of that general prosperity in the country which had resulted from a decreased taxation. Whatever might have been the case at a former time, this fact was clear now, public credit needed no sinking fund to support it. He considered that fund as worse than useless, as delusory and dangerous. It was possible, that there were gentlemen who might not be inclined to go all lengths with him, but would think a repeal of a portion of the assessed taxes sufficient. With regard to the house and window tax, he could hear of but one expression among all ranks-that they ought at once to be got rid of. The hon. member, after ob

serving that his estimates were formed upon the produce of the various duties for the last year, stated that the total amount to which the repeal would go was about 3,970,000l. He should sit down by moving the following resolution:-"That the house and window taxes-the tax on servants and carriages-the tax on horses, dogs, hair-powder, game, and horse-dealers' licences, and armorial bearings-that it was expedient that the whole of these duties should cease."

Mr. Leycester seconded the resolution proposed by his hon. friend Mr. Maberly.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer was something surprised, after hearing the arguments of the honourable member for Abingdon, that he should not have either waited a few evenings longer to bring forward his motion, or have brought it forward in rather a different way; because the hon. gentleman grounded the feasibility of his project upon the extinction of the sinking fund; and upon that subject distinctly the honourable member for Aberdeen had given notice of a motion; and, on the other hand, the honourable member for Westminster had a motion coming forward upon that part of the honourable gentleman's speech which related to the house and window tax. As the case stood, however, he (the chancellor of the exchequer) would make a few observations in support of the course which he lately thought it necessary to adopt; and doing this, he should proceed upon the assumption that the honourable member for Abingdon found fault, not with the principles which he maintained, but with his application of them. The arguments of the honourable member

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