measures and the Bill passed through the House | twopound notes without practically banishof Commons without a division. The Bill ing the gold, and undermining the basis of 1822, the hon. Gentleman said, was a on which the great superstructure of the Bill notoriously brought in to repeal the currency was built. It was this considerAct of 1819; and he had declared it to ation that had induced the Government be grossly inconsistent to bring in a Bill to shorten the period for which the small in the year 1822 to repeal the Act of 1819. notes had been issued. He was sorry to There might be a man gifted with faculties occupy the time of the House by such of so high an order that no charge of in- statements; but he dared to say that the consistency could ever be brought against hon. Gentleman would pronounce that he him—a man of such clear apprehension, of had entirely shrunk from the question, if such profound penetration, of such con- he did not enter into the details of the summate judgment, that he never had policy of the Acts of both the years 1819, held opposite opinions on any subject- 1822, and 1826. But the proper time one whose pen never contradicted his for discussing the policy of these Acts tongue, and was never inconsistent with was when the question of the currency itself; such a man might be entitled was before the House the other night, and to address him to the argumentum ad on that occasion, he had declared, that in hominem―to arraign him for the want of the year 1819, it was very difficult to have consistency. He would, however, whisper taken any other course than that which to the hon. Member, that he was not the had been adopted. However, the policy man; that from no quarter could the of the different Acts had then been discharge of inconsistency proceed with so cussed; he would not further waste the bad a grace. The charge of inconsistency time of the House by referring to it, as brought against poor short-sighted human the real question for them to determine beings as to the effects of political now was whether he (Sir Robert Peel), on this accusation, that politi- the ground of interested motives, or on cians had not penetrated into futurity- the ground of utter ignorance, or what was had not foreseen all the remote conse- far worse, in defiance of the solemn warnquences of the measures they introduced- ing which he and all mankind had rethat made wise by experience, they had ceived from the oracular predictions of the been compelled to recede and repair their hon. member for Oldham, had pursued a 'errors argued either consummate wisdom, line of policy for which he ought now, by or consummate assurance in him who pre- a vote of that House, to be dismissed for ferred it. But, after all, was the Act of ever from his Majesty's Privy Council.1822 tantamount to a repeal of the Act When the three measures were passed, of 1819. What had Mr. Huskisson said what was the sense entertained of them by of the bill of 1822? Mr. Huskisson the House of Commons? The Bill of 1819 said, "the present plan so far from being went through that House, as he had said suggested because the measure of 1819 before, without any opposition whatever, was repented of, was at all points per- and without one single division either on fectly consistent with that measure; and its principle, or on any one of its details. he (Mr. Huskisson) in the Committee In the year 1822 the Bill underwent very upon the Bill of 1819, had actually little discussion. There was only one proposed that the present plan should at division upon it in its progress through that time be recommended to Parlia- that House. And though now described in ment." These were questions on which terms of such strong condemnation by the hon. Gentlemen differed then, and differ hon. Member, it was then opposed only now; but if the House assented to the on the second reading. He had certainly motion for dismissing him from his Ma- not deluded the House on that occasion, jesty's Privy Council, would it not actu- for he had taken no part in the discussion, tually decide the whole of these ques- and when the House was divided on the tions? He would again say, that he second reading how many gentlemen voted still felt that it was right to try the expe- against it? Why, only four.-In the riment of the year 1826; but subsequent year 1826 the Bill had undergone repeated experience had convinced him that he discussions, and, he believed, several dicould not permit the issue of the one and visions, and at last the House had divided on the third reading. What was the division in that case? Why, the numbers • Hansard (new series) vi. p. 206. were for the third reading 108, and against it 9. To the whole of the three Bills, therefore, of 1819, 1822, and 1826, the total opposition that could be mustered was 13, out of a House of 658 Members. Was he to be dismissed the Privy Coun cil for measures which the House had ratified by such large majorities? He was then dealing with the Motion on its merits, and supposing it to be brought forward on conscientious grounds. If he had any private account to settle with the hon. Gentleman he would defer that for the present, but he could assure him that he would pay him his obligation in a currency not in the least depreciated, and he would not follow the hon. Gentleman's convenient doctrine with respect to the liability of persons to fulfil their engagements. He would now come to the charge that he had deluded the House. He was obliged to take the charges irregularly and inconsistently, as he had heard them from the hon. Gentleman. He was charged with having committed an act of folly, rendered even criminal by not having duly paid sufficient attention to the solemn warning which the hon. Member had been pleased to give upon the subject. The hon. Gentleman declared that there had been persons who had foreseen the consequences of these measures, and that they had endeavoured to persuade him of those consequences, but that, notwithstanding all their efforts, he had neglected their warnings, and that he was therefore to be held responsible, first for all the iniquity of the Act, and secondly for persevering in the measures after he had been favoured with such advice. The hon. Member did not, indeed, name himself as one of the prophets, but it was impossible not to see that the hon Member's aim was quite as much to extol his own powers of vaticination, as to expose the defect of judgment in others. back to 1819, he was then merely a Member of Parliament, and had been invited to belong to a Committee which was to be appointed, in order to consider what ought to be done under the then existing circumstances of the country. There were only three courses to pursue. The first was that which had been proposed by Mr. Western. That hon. Gentleman, then a member of the House of Commons, had proposed that the paper money should be kept at the height at which it then was, in order to ensure the continuance of war To go prices, and by which it was maintained, that all the consequences which had resulted from his bill might have been avoided. The second course that might. have been taken was one which had been suggested by some Gentlemen, and was nothing less than that there should be an actual and permanent depreciation of the standard. Some Gentlemen at that period maintained that there had been a virtual and actual depreciation of the standard value of the coinage during the war, and that the ounce of gold no longer represented the sum of 37. 17s. 103d., but 51., or even 5l. 10s.; and they argued that reverting to cash payments ought to have been accompanied by a paper convertible into gold, but gold depreciated in amount. The third plan was that which had been adopted, viz., to revert to the old standard of the country. The hon. Gentleman exclaimed: "Ay, I foretold all the consequences, and I charge with the guilt of all the calamities that ensued all who did not attend to me, and they must be denounced and expelled from the King's Councils; for I prophesied all that would happen-let justice be done-you must be debased, but I exalted!" wished not only to defend himself, but to destroy the hon. Gentleman's character as a prophet, which it was not his second object on this occasion to establish. He was vain enough to flatter himself, that he should find very little difficulty in showing that his claims to oracular wisdom in this respect were but shallow and presumptive. The hon. Member's bill of indictment charged the whole of the existing difficulties of the country to the Act of 1819. The hon. Member's memory perhaps failed him, but, at all events, his opinions in 1822 were not the same as his opinions now. He would ask any Gentleman in that House, whether he could reconcile this with what he had said in his letter addressed to Mr. Western on that occasion?-These were the hon. Member's words:-' In the first place I have to remind you, as I did Mr. 'Wodehouse, that the Act of 1797, and those by which it was continued, provided for a return to cash payments at 'the end of six months after the making of peace, and these payments are not yet 'come at the end of seven years after mak'ing the peace. So that the Bill of 1819 He was really a relaxation of the Pitt system which would have sewed you up in six 'months after the peace was made. It 'would have taken away your estate seven years ago. And when you are crying out "spoliation," and "confiscation,' when you are bawling out so lustily ' about the robbery committed on you by 'the fundholders and piacemen, and are praising the infernal Pitt system at the same time, you seem to forget that these people always plead, and very justly, the Act of 1797 in support of their pre'sent demands. You say, they are receiving, the fund vagabonds in particular, more than they ought. You say, they are paid back more than they lent. You say, that they lent in one sort of · money, and are paid in another. This ' is all very true; but is not this perfectly ' unfavorable to the Pitt system? And do not the Jewish vagabonds tell you so? 'Do they not say, or rather their supporters for them, that they lent their money upon the faith of the law, which said they should get their interest in cash at the peace. The measure of 1819 tardily began to prepare for doing what the Act of 1797 commanded to be done 6 'long before. What do you mean then by saying that the Act of 1797 cannot excuse the measures of 1819? Common sense would suppose you to mean that the former Act could not excuse the latter for coming so late; could not excuse it for not coming to execute justice upou the hare and pheasant gentry seven years ago, agreeably to good faith" with the Jews, and the "dead weight." This is the way in which common sense would interpret your words, but you, the great Essex statesman, despise the interpretations of common 'sense.' Was the distress of the country attributable to the Act of 1819, or was it possible to avoid that Act? Let the hon. Member decide the question: The point, he said, we had attained was poor-rates ' of 8,000,000l. a-year, and labourers in and drinking water, and driven 'out of the farm-houses, and winter subIscriptions for the houseless, and men 'chained to carts drawing gravel-that was "the point we had attained." You will please to bear that in mind. If the 'devil himself had been the author of the system, he could not have brought us to a much worse point; and yet the great 'subject of your lamentation is that this system was not persevered in. How ever, the question is, was it in the power of the Government to uphold that sysVOL. XVII. Third Series} 'tem? You say it was-I say it was not. And this is a great question; because you and many others are wanting to bring the system back. I shall, hereafter, show the folly and injustice of what you call your remedy; but I am here to show, that the Government had not the power (if it meant to preserve itself) to uphold the base paper system. At the time when Peel's Bill was passed, 'the country was actually upon the eve of open rebellion. It was not six Acts that quieted the people, but low prices. The most populous parts of the kingdom could not be kept from rising in arms, with the price of provisions what they had been during the war. Manufactures must, in a great measure, have ceased, when the markets of the world 'became open in consequence of peace, ' if our price of food had not been lowered. If the vile and foolish Corn Bill had not proved a dead letter, the manufactures must have been nearly put an end to as far as related to export. That Bill was intended to do for the landlords what the paper-money had been doing for 'them; but it, luckily, failed of its object. Have peace at home the Government' could not, without reducing the price of the necessaries of life. Besides this, the "rapid advances" in the science of forgery threatened to annihilate the base system by its own means. Nearly onehalf of the notes in circulation, in some parts of the kingdom, were forgeries. It was become evident that a stop must be put to the hangings; and yet, without the hangings, what could at all check the forgeries? Then, again, it was as clear as daylight that, in case of war, 6 our enemies would attack us in our own old way with regard to the French assignats. That they could do it was evident, and it was not less evident that the whole thing might at any time be puffed out at a very trifling expense. I was thought to be joking when I said so; but I now repeat, with perfect seriousness, that I not only believe the thing could have been done, but that it would have been done if Peel's Bill had not been passed.' Why, continued the right hon. Baronet, the hon. Member himself did try to puff the whole thing out," for he recommended as strongly as he could the forging of bank paper. When they considered the great talents of the hon. Gentleman, and that he recommended for 6.66 2 U gery for the purpose of precipitating the downfall of the system, was it not too much for the same man now to turn round and threaten him with an indictment for having brought in a Bill to guard against the evils which the hon. Member himself had used so much exertion to cause. What he had quoted was published in the year 1822. It was acute reasoning, and he had seen no defence of the Bill of 1819 equal to the defence of it, which the hon. Gentleman had made. The hon. Gentleman had proved, that the Government had not had the power to continue the paper system; that it had run its inevitable course; that bankruptcy must have been declared but for the return to gold; nay, that we were on the eve of civil war on account of the distress and sufferings caused to the industrious poor by the paper system. The House would perceive, that the hon. Member treated Mr. Western as the great advocate for continuing the paper currency at its then value. There was, however, another scheme recommended to Parliament, which was to let the ounce of gold pass for 51. instead of 31. 17s. 101d. This would have been so far consistent with the principle of the Act of 1819, that paper would have been convertible into gold, but that the standard of value would have been greatly lowered. That proposition also met with no favour from the hon. Gentleman. All the indignation and ridicule which the hon. Member had poured out on Mr. Western fell far short of that which he reserved for those who advocated an alteration of the standard. The great supporter of this plan, the debasing of the standard, was a gentleman from Birmingham, on whom the hon. Gentleman conferred a title, which he believed and hoped was still retained. In all the controversy which he had carried on with him, the hon. Member never called him by any other name than "My Lord Little Shilling." His Lordship had published long pamphlets on the subject, but the hon. Gentleman's contempt for him was such that he would never reason with him, and had always thrust all his arguments aside as the trash of "My Lord Little Shilling." The hon. Member had also addressed a letter to Lord Folkestone, whom he had described as taking wider views on the subject of the currency than any other Member of Parliament. Lord Folkestone, notwithstanding the enlarge ment of his views, proposed a debasement of the standard. The hon. member for Oldham had referred to the noble Lord in one of his most characteristic papers. He said, You have borrowed from me one or 'two sound principles; but the application of them is all your own. Your arguments are altogether yours, and are of the weakest description.' The hon. Gentleman (continued Sir Robert) went on to show, that the difficulty of reverting to the ancient standard was very great, and he had opposed all these plans for reducing the standard in a most able manner. The hon. Gentleman said, that the country must resume payments in gold, and must return to the ancient standard; and what then was the difference between the hon. Gentleman and himself? The difference was this. The hon. Gentleman said, that, on resuming cash payments, we must resume the ancient standard, but must at the same time proceed forcibly to reduce the Debt; and that we must resume the Church Lands [Mr. Cobbett said, he had made no such proposal in that House]. Oh, no; there was nothing of that kind in the present Resolutions, but he considered the hon. Gentleman as a public man; and if he adopted any line of argument out of the House different from what he used in the House, he would hold him responsible there for the language the hon. Member used [" No," from Mr. Cobbett]. He said yes. There was no public man who had claimed to exercise any influence over the public mind, for which he was not to be held responsible. The hon. Gentleman, then, was an advocate for reverting to the ancient standard; but he proposed with that a forcible reduction of the interest of the National Debt, or rather, a refusal to pay the just amount of interest. He said, that we paid too much to the public creditor. The only other point of difference between him and the hon. Gentleman was, that the hon. Gentleman said, that the country could not afford to pay pensions and large salaries, and they must be reduced. But there was no man in Parliament who would support a proposition similar to that of the hon. Gentleman. He was like the Phoenix of Cowley, “A vast species alone." He certainly had not adopted the hon. Member's views, and never had proposed, and never would propose, any measure which was a breach of public faith. But what did the hon. Gen very man tleman say in answer to Mr. Western? | Act of 1797, and relied upon it " "When you are crying out for confisca-justly." There was not, then, a shadow tion and spoliation, by bawling out about of difference between him and the hon. robbery committed by the public creditor, Member; they both agreed that the ancient you forget that these men always appealed standard should be resumed, and that the to the Act of 1797, and very justly." public creditor was entitled to expect Thus the hon. Gentleman's own opinion justice, and not to be fleeced. The hon. was, that the public creditor relied "very Gentleman said, that sinecures should be justly" on the Act of 1819, for repayment reduced. If there were any sinecures, of his debt in gold. With what pretence let them be reduced; but let no then could the hon. Gentleman propose to cherish the notion, that any relief which reduce that debt? He would next refer to could be obtained by the reduction of what the hon. Gentleman had said about sinecures would be of the least avail. It the condition of the labouring classes. would be like a drop in the Pacific Ocean. The hon. Gentleman had read a Resolu- There were in fact no sinecures to abolish. tion of certain Magistrates of Hampshire, He was ready to reduce establishments, not which he said was a consequence of the to the nominal state of any former period, Act of 1819. But the hon. Gentleman but to that state which was compatible with ought to have contrasted the situation of the present security of the public, and the labouring classes when that Resolution the honour of the country. So much for was passed, with their situation in 1819. the Motion of the hon. Gentleman-the "In 1819," said the hon. member for public, plausible, parliamentary, grounds Oldham (and Sir Robert again quoted of the Motion! The other hon. member The Register to the following effect), "the for Oldham had referred to the answer Poor-rates were eight millions-the la- he had returned to the representations bourers were in rags-they were chained made of great distress in 1829, and to his to carts-they had been banished from taking no means to remove that distress. the farm-houses-they had no places but But at that very time he had sent perthe worst hovels to dwell in-and if the sons to Burnley, Blackburn, and to other devil himself had invented a system, he districts of Lancashire, to make inquiries could not have invented one of greater into the distress, and he had given them suffering than that of which he was la- authority where the distress was most sementing the consequence." He had vere, to relieve it; but they were instructed followed the hon. Gentleman with the to say nothing of that authority, and closest attention, and it was clear, that indeed to be careful not to allow it to be the only point of difference between him known that they were agents of Governand the hon. Gentleman was not as to the ment. If that had been publicly proclaimed, propriety of resuming the ancient stan- the whole object of the inquiry would have dard, but as to the policy and justice of been defeated, and personal exertions other concomitant measures. The hon. on the part of those who were on the spot, Member required that the national estab- would have been greatly relaxed. It was lishments should be forthwith reduced; often necessary for the Government to and because he (Sir Robert Peel) had conceal its intentions of relieving distress, not made that reduction, and because otherwise its objects would be defeathe had not made the proposition to re-ed. He denied that the expressions of the duce the interest of the Debt, which no hon. Member had made, or had the courage or the dishonesty to make; because he had not made the proposition, the hon. Member now moved an Address to the Crown to remove him from the Privy Council, He would not make any such proposition, and he would rather be dismissed from ten Privy Councils, if that were possible, than make such a proposition. He was to be dismissed, too, because he had not made such a proposition, when, according to the hon. Gentleman himself, the public creditor relied on the letter of 1829 betrayed any indifference to the distress of the people. He had promised to bring those complaints under the consideration of the Government, and he had done so, but he could not disclose or reason upon the plans of relief. Suppose part of the plan of relief to be a reduction of taxation, how could he prematurely mention that? He would not enter into details to refute the hon. Gentleman, who thought, because distress existed, and because relief was not instantly promised, and the mode of relief explained, that therefore public men were to be dis |