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Right Honourable Gentleman fuggefted another anfwer, which was, that a part of the Revenue, now exifting, and made perpetual, fhould be made annual. Now, to fay the truth, he hoped he had not correctly comprehended the Right Honourable Gentleman in that particular. If he had, to be fure nothing could be more extraordinary than fuch a statement. It amounted to this, that thofe taxes, which were made annual for the fecurity of the power of the House of Commons over the King's Minifters were to be made perpetual; and that which was made perpetual, for the fecurity of the State, was to be made annual; this was, the Minifter's dextrous management to anfwer purposes of his own; by which the constitutional power of the Houfe of Commons was invaded, and by which the public creditor was deprived of the fecurity which Parliament ftood pledged to preferve inviolate. If he was in an error he should be glad to be corrected, because he did not fee that he could alter any thing that the Minister propofed in that Houfe, and the Minifter, he fuppofed, had already given a tone to the meafure. It would be great fatisfaction, at least to him, to find that the Conftitution was fafe. The point was of too much magnitude to be paffed over, and he fhould be obliged to the Right Honourable Gentleman if he would have the goodnefs to explain the matter.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer faid, he did not merely complain that the Honourable Gentleman had mifunderstood him, but that he also had mifunderstood the nature of the queftion. Upon the conftitutional part of the question, whether the Houfe was to poffefs fome check upon the money fo applied, the Honourable Gentleman had not faid one word, and therefore to that point no anfwer was required. As to the queftion as relating to the confolidated fund, that certainly was an important one, nor did he mean to under rate it. That, however, was not the conftitutional question, but one arifing out of the fituation of the country, and being part of the fituation of the country. Whether there was any infringe ment of the fecurity of the public creditor was another question. He would afk, was it not in the power of Parliament to repeal any of those duties, which had from time to time been carried to the various funds, and at length to the confolidated fund, for the purpose of paying the national dividends? Did that Honourable Gentleman conceive he violated his duty as a Member of Parliament, when he voted for the repeal of any one of the duties which had been carried to the confolidated fund? The duties on fpirits, which were appropriated for the payment of the public creditor, had always been voted from time to time, fometimes for not more than three years. If

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the Honourable Gentleman would take the trouble to look into the hiftory of the revenue, he will find that all the various duties from time to time voted, were many of them temporary, though voted as the fecurity for permanent debts; and even at this day a large part of the revenue was temporary and not perpetual. The refult therefore was this, that the faith of Parliament was pledged, not for the continuance of any particular duties, but to make the confolidated fund effective either by temporary or other taxes for the payment of the public creditor; and therefore, in making a part of it temporary though now perpetual, no acknowledged principle was departed from. The tendency of the measure was this; to free the confolidated fund to the amount of 400,0001. per annum, which would be the faving to the country by the new arrangement. The Honourable Gentleman would therefore fee, that if his argument even was correct, it would only require the introduction of a more ftrict claufe to effect his intention.

The Honourable Gentleman had faid, that one motive for his fpeaking at this ftage of the bufinefs, when difcuffion would be premature and ufelefs, was to prevent his filence being conftrued into unanimity. Why the Honourable Gentleman fhould be apprehenfive of that he was unable to conjecture. He affured the Honourable Gentleman that he knew him too well to take his filence for concord or unanimity-for he had often found his oppofition moft obftinate when preceded by a fient acquiefcence in the firft ftages of his meafures. So far from having meat to imply that that was the Honourable Gentleman's habit, he had fpoken merely of his conduct on the late menfure, now in its paffage through the Houfe, for the defence of the country; and he affured the Honourable Gentleman, he had alluded to it in a way that he thought would have been extremely confolatory to his feelings, as the Honourable Gentleman had on that occafion taken infinite pains to make a difplay of his acquiefcence, and to proclaim to the world that he had added to the unanimity with which that meafure had been adopted. He profuffed to be at a lofs to divine what was the tendency of the Honourable Gentleman's ebjcctions: one half of them the Honourable Gentleman had contented himself with leaving to other fupport than his own, having argued only on the propofition that the meafure would injure the public creditor, and refigning to more able hands the maintenance of his other propofition, that it would be injurious to the landed gentleman.

This task had been undertaken by a Noble Lord (of vaft ability no doubt, Lord Sheffield) who had pronounced the

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measure to be the most extraordinary, the most rash, and the very worst that had ever been brought before Parliament, without having condefcended to affign one fingle reason for that weighty denunciation. Now, how the Noble Lord could make up his mind to apply fuch terms as he had done to a meafure which carried in it no compulfion, and which, fo far as it related to the landed gentlemen, was perfectly optional, and which created no new burdens, he fhould have been vaftly puzzled to conjecture, were it not that he knew the Noble Lord fometimes expreffed himfelf with more ill-humour than he felt at bottom-that he was in the habit of speaking very pofitively without thinking very deeply, and, in his ardent zeal for the propagation of his own hafty notions, frequently laid down propofitions which on cooler reflection he thought proper to retract. Making this allowance for the Noble Lord, and convinced of his Lordship's zeal for the public good, he would fay nothing further on the fubject, but intreat that his Lordship would do himself the juftice to read the refolutions before he again undertook to cenfure them. He would, therefore, leave the Noble Lord, and turn again to the Honourable Gentlemen (Mr. Tierney) whom he did not know, whether he should most thank, that one part of his argument contradicted the other, or that a great portion was fo completely in favour of the measure, that it might fave him the trouble of answer ing his objections. The Honourable Gentleman had made a fort of humourous allufion to perfons of a different religion, who, he faid, had a longer ken than he had; but it was evident that the Honourable Gentleman's own ken was not long enough to enable him to difcover the palpable contradiction in his fpeech. He had faid that the propofed plan would have no effect in railing the funds; and then, he faid it was a terrible proof of a connexion between Government and the monied men, and that its great object was to give them a bonus on a new loan. But how could this be done, except by raifing the funds? It was rather a curious mode of arguing which the Honourable Gentleman adopted, when he faid that the mea fure would not produce any good, because the notice he gave on Thursday had produced none already. And then he went on to affert, without any foundation, that the public always thought that any meafure propofed by him was the fame as if it was adopted. In anfwer to this affertion, he could only fay, that he had brought forward a great variety of propofitions relative to finance in that Houfe, which had not been carried into effect as they had been originally propofed, but, in confe quence of the fuggeftion of Gentlemen in that Houfe, underwent fo many modifications that the nature and form of them

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were often totally changed.

Now, in his mind, he had, in doing fo, exactly done his duty-for it was, in the first place, his official duty to urge whatever he thought neceffary, and if, when it came to be difcuffed, he was fhewn that it was defective, or very unpopular, it was certainly his duty to conform to that which he found to be right, and to yield to the public opinion. A ftriking proof of this occurred fince the beginning of the prefent feffion, when he had introduced the Bill for increafing the affeffed taxes. Then he confented to alterations fo different from what he had originally propofed, as to render the Bill not near fo productive as it otherwife would have been. At that time he had been violently attacked by the Honourable Gentleman (Mr. Tierney) who ftill perfevered in his atticks, even after the modifications had been made in the Bill. Not lefs extraordinary was the Honourable Gentleman's argument that the measure could not raife the funds, because the report that it was in agitation had not yet had any effect upon them. He believed the Houfe would agree with him that fuch an argument was at least premature. When the measure had undergone a little more confideration, it would be time enough for the Honourable Gentleman, and he would be better able, to make fuch a remark. It would be ftrange, indeed, if the bare announcing of a meafure was to produce the fame effect as the accomplishment of it:-had that ever been the cafe in a fingle inftance. The announcing of the plan for the reduction of the national debt did not produce any immediate change, but in fome time afterwards its effects were fo powerful, that the funds rofe to par. If, however, the Honourable Gentleman could contrive to verify, and make good his allegations, that is to fay, if on the one hand, the measure would operate as a bonus to the monied men, and, on the other, the country was benefited, and the landed intereft accommodated, not only without taking from, but actually adding to the publie purfe, fo far from having caufe to fear, he would have to thank the Honourable Gentleman for his obfervations; for the meafure would go abroad with much greater advantage from the Honourable Gentleman's fhort fpecch, than it could poffibly derive from the long fpeech with which he himself had prefaced it.

Mr. Tierney obferved, that if it was true his fhort fpeech had ferved to recommend this meafure of the Right Honourable Gentleman; another fhort fpeech could not but be regarded as fome proof of refpect. But he was not very much indined himself to imagine, that, with the unfophifticated and candid part of the Committee, his fhort fpeech would pass merely 25 a recommendation of a measure of which he could not ap

prove. The Right Honourable Gentleman, however, had in very plain terms accused him of ufing unparliamentary language, and it was on this account chiefly that he again addreffed himfelf to the Committee. Certainly it was in the nature of an attack on his Parliamentary language, to be told that he had faid that the Members of the British House of Commons were fo wholly mechanical, as that any meafure the Minifter might think fit to propofe would unfailingly experience their fupport. And what other had been the purport of the Right Honourable Gentleman's mifconftruction of his words? But the Committee would remember, he had not said that that Houfe voted always with the Right Honourable Gentleman. What he faid was, that ignorant people out of doors, who could not, from their fituation be fuppofed to know any thing of the independence of certain Gentlemen, or that the Houfe of Conmons was filled with fo virtuous a clafs of men, often believed, that any measure the Minifter propofed would be adopted by Parliament. Large bodies of men, in fituations, were not wanting of means to offord them information, were also too apt to think that the Right Honourable Gentleman no fooner propofed a Bill than it was paffed. With refpect to the accufation made against him-of having adopted a ftrange mode of argument all that was ftrange in it, had been the refult of the Right Honourable Gentleman's dexterity at mifreprefentation. When the Right Honourable Gentleman ftated him to have faid, "that the funds would rife, and that they would not," all he had meant diftinctly was, that if the meafure was intended to benefit the country in its prefent difficult ftruggle, it would moft certainly not have that effect. Inftead of any advantage or profit arifing from fuch a tranfaction to the country, the money would all go into the pockets of the monied people, and not into that of the public. Undoubtedly the flocks might experience a rife in the progrefs of fuch a fcheme of finance as the prefent; but that rife would, he contended, be temporary, while in the end the effect would be to deprefs them, or, if they did ultimately rife, only individuals would benefit by it. Thus did he confider himself warranted in faying, that if this was not a bonus, at least it held out a lure to thofe who might be defirous of contracting for a loan. The Right Honourable Gentleman had equally mistated him with regard to what he had faid on the fubject of the confolidated furd. He had not great pretenfions to talent, but he did think, poor as might be his capacity, he had understanding enough to know, that the confolidated fund and taxes were not the conftitution. So far from having confounded thefe, he well knew that they were in all refpects different, and he was

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