power to carry on the prefent ftruggle for any length of time, if it fhould unfortunately be found expedient and neceffary fo to do. Arguments had been drawn, he said, against it, from its not having caused, fince it was known to be in difcuffion, any rife in the funds. This, he faid, was judging upon very falfe grounds upon grounds on which he had never calculated any advantages whatever. Some Gentlemen had infinuated, he believed by what had dropped in the courfe of the debate, that he had, in bringing forward the measure at this moment, built confiderable hopes on the good effects it would have on the approaching Loan. This, he faid, was not the cafe; though he had no doubt but if the measure was cordially adopted with the unanimous confent of the House, it would have a material effect upon the Loan which is approaching. The fluctuation of the funds, he faid, was owing to a variety of extenfive and extraor dinary fpeculations. He had been informed that already, though no precife time had been mentioned or fixed upon by him for finally negotiating the Loan, that in the city two different days had been pofitively fixed for that event, and large fictitious fums bad been bought and fold to give it a colour, and for the express purpofe of having an effect on the Loan, whenever it should be made. This he knew, and he believed he should be able to adopt fuch measures as would altogether fruftrate and defeat their interefted views. Upon the whole, he looked upon the present meafure as highly neceflary at the prefent crifis. He was fully convinced that would be highly ufeful, and eminently beneficial to the interefts of the whole nation, and as fuch to none more fo than the Gentlemen and poffeffors of landed property. The Refolutions were agreed to. Adjourned. HOUSE OF COMMONS. Glasgow Road Bill was read a third time and paffed. A new Writ was ordered for Rippon, vice Lord Headly, deceased. A new Writ was ordered for Eaft Looe, vice Wm. Greaves, who has accepted the Office of Steward of the Chiltern Hundreds. SHIP OWNERS' BILL. The Order of the Day being read for the fecond reading of the Ship Owners' Bill, Mr. Alderman Lufhington faid, before he moved the fecond reading of this Blll, he would ftate to the House the grounds upon which it was brought forwards. Before, however, he did it, he would premife, it was a fubject of the greatest importance to a numerous numerous and refpectable class in fociety; but in its confequences it was not merely interefting to them, but it affected the general interefts of fociety. For the general welfare was intimately connected with the profperity of our merchants, and it was impoffible for them to fuffer without the public being allo partakers in their calamity. He need but remind the House, what an enormous mais of revenue was derived from our trade, and fo fenfible was the Houle of this, that in the various Acts for extending Inland Navigation, for facilitating carriage, by Road and Turnpike Bills, they had the benefit of trade always in view, and they would act confiftently with that principle in acceding to the prefent Bill. The object of the Bill was, to reduce the law to proper precifion, between the carrier and freighter, in order that juftice might be done between man and man. It was a meafure much approved by all the Ship Owners, as their various petitions would prove, and the late decifion in the King's Bench, in the cafe of Sheppard and Smith, had thrown the utmoft alarm among the fhipping intereft. There was at this moment between fifty and fixty millions of capital afloat, and if the law food as it was now declared to be, it would take an immenfe fum to infure the additional rifque. He trufted, therefore, the Houfe would confider the Ship Owners as entitled to their attention, especially as they acted upon the fuppofition of the law being as by this Bill he fought to have it establifhed, and, therefore, upon a fyftem, the benefit of which experience had fully proved. With respect to Inland Navigation, Gentlemen might do as they pleafed, but if he might advie, he thought it would be better to bring in a feparate Eill upon that fubject, with what regulations they thought proper. He hoped the Houfe would agree with him in the neceflity of giving the additional fecurity to Ship Owners. No oppofition was made by any Members; the Bill was therefore read a fecond time and committed; and a Petition prefented againft it by Mr. Buller. Referred to the faid Committee; and it was ordered that Counsel fhould be heard againft the faid Petition in favour of the Bill. The Bill was then read a fecond time, and ordered to be committed. LAND TAX. Mr. Hobart brought up the Report of the Committee on the plan for the redemption of the Land Tax. The Refolutons were read a first, and were moved to be read a fecond time, when Mr. Harrifon obferved, that it was to him a matter of confiderable furprife that a meafure, the real advantages of which were fo fmall, and the difadvantages fo manifeft, thould be perfifted in. If the plan were one likely to produce any thing that No. 24. could SP could tend to strengthen the country in its prefent exigency, he fhould have been happy to have affented to it; but, in his mind, one worfe in principle, or more injurious, had never been brought forward. It was a plan fo little likely to be effectual, and was withal fo great an evil, without the prospect of ever being productive of any good, that he trufted the Houfe would paufe before they permitted the fecond reading of the Refolutions to take place. The advantage held out was that, if the plan anfwered to the fulleft expectations of thofe who had brought it forward, there would be a gain to the public of 400,000l. at the end of a period of five years. Such a faving was certainly a great thing to be looked to, and naturally tended to prejudice perfons in favour of the measure; but he believed Minifters might fave the public a much more confiderable fum, without the inconveniences that prefented themselves in this plan, by directing their minds ferioufly and attentively to the reduction of every fpecies of wafte of the public money in every department of public expenditure.-By the propofition now before the Houfe, every Landholder was to be called upon to declare within a twelvemonth whether he would purchafe his Land Tax or not. Suppofe at any particular time within that period it fhould be convenient for a Landholder to make fuch purchase, and he fhould make one or two payments, and afterwards, from fortuitous circumftances, fhould be unable to pay the reft, a fuppofition not unlikely, he would then be obliged to forfeit the whole of what he had advanced; this was an inconvenience which he by no means thought perfons fo fituated ought to be fubjected to. But it was faid, perfons under fuch circumftances might appeal to the Court of Exchequer, where they might obtain redrefs. He had little hopes that relief would effectually be granted by the Court of Exchequer, except indeed it was to thofe whofe public principles and conduct might be a recommendation in their favour, and therefore it was putting the people in general in a fituation of difficulty, which nothing but the certainty of a great and extraordinary benefit refulting to the public from the plan would in any fhape juftify. He was fure no one who turned his mind to the prefent fituation of the country, and then contemplated the confequences of the propofitions now brought forward, could approve of them. Numbers of propofitions had before been fubmitted by Minifters, fome had been carried into effect, others again had appeared fo impracticable, and fo inadequate to their object, that they had been eventually abandoned and relinquifhed; of the latter defcription were the prefent; and it was fincerely to be wifhed they would not be farther preffed upon the House. Upon the whole review of the measure, measure, it appeared to him fo little likely to answer any real good purpose, that he could not avoid thinking the Chancellor of the Exchequer must be actuated by fome fecret motive. Certainly, if the landed property was to be made fecurity for the funded; if eighty millions were to be brought into the market, backed with the landed fecurity, it would have the effect of raifing the price of the funds. But it was as evident, if this were done, the confequence would be, that the whole of the landed property of the country would be a collateral fecurity for what it ought not to have any connexion with at all. Any act that implicated the land as a fecurity for funded property, he confidered as improper, and therefore he should object to the fecond reading of the Refolutions. He repeated, that nothing but a firm conviction of the beneficial effects to be derived from fuch a plan, could juftify its adoption. The Chancellor of the Exchequer faid, the queftion in point of form was, whether the refolutions fhould be read a fecond time; but from the obfervations thrown out by the Honourable Gentleman, he could not but doubt, whether he had attended to the reading of them even a first time. The Honourable Gentleman had stated, that if the measure was such a one as would lead to great and material advantages, he would adopt it, although it might be attended with inconveniencies. It was therefore a little extraordinary that with these fentiments he should be averfe to difcuffing them, and of afcertaining, by fuch difcuffion, whether any, and what remedies could be devised for fuch inconveniencies as did exist. The Honourable Gentleman had imagined, that his (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) object in bringing forward this measure, was only to gain the fum of 400,000l. at a remote period. Certainly he had ftated, upon opening the plan to the Houfe, that fome pecuniary gain was likely ultimately to accrue to the public, but he had fo ftated it, as to have it evidently understood that fuch an expectation was a fecondary confideration, and in point of fact very far from being the principal object he had in view. He had then ftated, that the measure would have a tendency to raise the price of the stocks, to extend the credit of the country, and add to its resources. He had then stated it might be attended with immediate benefit, and that the bare knowledge of fuch a fyftem having commenced, would carry with it the greatest of all poffible advantages, namely, the certainty in the public mind, that if the meafure was likely to fucceed, it was one which would have the effect of giving ftrength to the financial operations of the country, and increafing thofe refources by which we were to be enabled to prolong a conteft, rendered neceffary by the inordinate ambition, and implacable refentment 5 P 2 of of the enemy with whom we were contending.-He did not think that any Gentleman in the Houfe, particularly any who had a stake in the landed intereft of the country, nay that any one who was poffeffed of those feelings which ought to animate the bofom of an Englishman, would have conceived, far lefs expreffed, the fentiments that it was a fmall object if the plan merely held out a chance of fupporting us in a contest which imperiously called upon every one for the full extent of his exertions, a contest wherein that was at ftake which was dearer to us all than our lives. Was it an unimportant object if the plan held out the chance of enabling the country to increase those means by which the people could alone hope to fave themselves from the attempts of the enemy, from ignominy and flavery? Every meafure then that even gave a chance of fuch an advantage ought to be adopted, and confequently every meafure that held out fuch a chance was at least entitled to free difcuffion; he therefore thought it very extraordinary that any Gentleman should endeavour to prevent the fecond reading of the refolutions, and fill more fo, that that Gentleman fhould be one who really appeared to have come down to the Houfe ignorant of what was the views and intentions of the mover of the fubject. The Honourable Gentleman had next fuppofed there was fome fecret motive in bringing forward this meafure, and that motive he had fuppofed was to have a ftock created, which would be of higher value than any exifting funds, by being backed with landed fecurity, and that the three per cents. befides having what in fact every one knew they had already, a mortgage on the land, or the trade and industry of the country, was to have a specific mortgage on fome particular land. Upon this point there was not one word in the refolutions which hinted at giving land as a fecurity to any ftock; but the principle of the meafure was, that perfons transferring a proportion of the exifting funds, which would, by fuch transfer, be altogether annihilated, fuch perfons, in lieu of that fecurity which they had parted with, would acquire a fecurity on land. How that made land a collateral fecurity for funded property, he was, he owned, incapable of determining. Thus it appeared that the Honourable Gentleman's argument, that the measure was not a good one, was founded first on a misconception of what the measure really was; and fecondly, on an idea that it propofed to do fomething, which in fact it had no reference at all The Honourable Gentleman had alfo glanced at other objections, which this was not the proper time to answer. They would be fit matter for difcuffion when the fubject was confidered in detail in the future progrefs of the Bill. Among other to. things, |