MEETING OF PARLIAMENT.
Parliament was opened by commission on the 4th of February. The royal speech expressed satisfaction at the conclusion of war between Russia and the Ottoman Porte, and alluded to the embarrassing affairs of Portugal. Concerning the prevailing distress, it remarked:—“His majesty laments that, notwithstanding an 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.” This qualified admission of the existence of national distress gave great offence in both houses of parliament. In the lords, Earl Stanhope moved as an amendment to the address, “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 more inappropriate and unsatisfactory speech had never been addressed to any public assembly. The speech said that distress existed “in some parts” of the country: he asked, in what part it did not exist? The kingdom, he asserted, was in a state of universal distress, embracing alike agriculture, manufactures, trade, and commerce. These great interests had never before at one time been at so low an ebb, nor in a condition which demanded more imperatively the prompt and energetic interference of parliament. The speech ascribed the distress existing, so far as it had admitted it, to unfavourable seasons. This of course operated upon grain; but was the effect of unfavourable seasons 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 they could not deny it, if they only cast their eyes around, and saw the counties pouring on them every kind of solicitation 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. The amendment moved by Earl Stanhope was supported by the Duke of Richmond, and the Earls of Carnarvon and Winchilsea. The Earl of Carnarvon declared that the address called upon them to pledge themselves to statements inconsistent with truth, and declared that he would never lend his countenance to the fallacious representations of mere partial distress, as set forth in the speech. That speech, he said, did not contain one word of the true causes of the country’s suffering; but gravely desired them to take “the state of the seasons” into their consideration. He contended that no small part of the distress was owing to the change in the currency. There had been periods of distress in former times, but they had soon passed away. Now, however, the kingdom was placed in very different circumstances, as the circulation of specie was no longer commensurate with the demand. He suggested that a silver standard should be adopted, by which he conceived that the resources of the country would be emancipated from the artificial fetters in which they were now bound, and prove sufficient to feed the now starving population. The Earl of Winchilsea said, that, if the house refused to take the distress into consideration, an opinion would be forced on the country, that it was unable to legislate for the public good. A spirit was springing up, he said, in different parts of the country, for forming associations, not to lay the grievances of the people before parliament, but to propose remedies of their own, and to redress their own wrongs. To that spirit, he contended, their lordships would be supplying encouragement if they refused to institute an inquiry into the nature and causes of the existing distress. The amendment was opposed by Lord Goderich, the Marquis of Lansdowne, and the Duke of Wellington. Lord Goderich said that the true object of its noble mover 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 his own part he had never been able to learn, from the opponents of what was called “Free Trade,” what that was which they denounced under that name. The noble mover seemed to menace by it the refusal to foster domestic agriculture by prohibiting the importation of foreign wool. That refusal was no modern invention. It was not till 1819 that the importation of foreign wool had been prohibited; and the duty then laid was imposed merely for the purposes of revenue, and not as a protection to trade. The Duke of Wellington said that much more had been made out of the expressions in the speech, concerning the bad seasons, than was meant. It was not set down as the only cause of distress, but was alluded to as one circumstance not to be lost sight of: there had been one bad harvest, and another had been attended, in getting it in, with unusual expense; these were facts to be taken into consideration. Another cause of distress, he said, “was to be found in the state of our manufactures: this it was to which his majesty alluded, when he spoke of me operation of causes beyond the reach of legislative control. Were not, he asked, 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? But,” his grace continued, “I am satisfied that the distress is not universal; that there are parts of the country free from it. The exports of last year had been greater than they had ever been before; and there was not a canal or railway 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. 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.” His grace in continuance said, that he could not agree with the supporters of the amendment, that what distress existed was to be ascribed to the restricted circulating medium to a metallic currency. There was no foundation in fact for such an opinion: the circulation was greater now than before the restriction, and therefore the distress could not be properly attributed to a deficient circulation. The Marquis of Lansdowne opposed the amendment because its true object was to bring the house to the adoption of one of the greatest evils which this country had ever endured, an unlimited issue of a paper circulation. If the first were taken, it would lead to subsequent steps, against which it was his duty to guard the house and the public. Distress, he added, unquestionably existed to a lamentable extent; but he concurred in the recommendation that it should receive the most cautious attention. On a division the amendment was lost by a majority of seventy-one against nine.
In the commons the battle on this subject was much more fierce than in the lords. An amendment to the address was moved by Sir Edward Knatchbull, founded, as in the lords, on the alleged misrepresentation contained in the speech regarding the distresses of the country, and the consequent determination of ministers to adopt no measures either of inquiry or relief. Sir Edward Knatchbull contended that the distress was universal; and if he were called upon for other proof than that of his own testimony, he would say, “Let every member who now hears me state honestly and fairly, and without reserve, what is the situation of the place with which he as a representative is immediately connected.” The house was asked on this first day of the session to approach his majesty with a declaration something like a downright falsehood. He did not mean, however, to advert at present to any remedy for the distress. All he asked was this, to state in their address to his majesty the naked truth as to the distress of the country. He therefore moved to strike out of the address the clause affirming existence of partial distress, and to insert the following:—“We lament the existence of that distress which your majesty informs us is confined to some places; but in the painful discharge of our duty we are constrained to declare to your majesty that that distress is not confined to some places, as your majesty has been advised, but is general among all the productive interests of the country, which are severely suffering from its pressure. We beg to assure your majesty that we shall adopt the caution which your majesty recommends in the consideration of the measures to be adopted in reference to these interests, and that our earnest endeavours shall be employed to alleviate and remove the distress now so unfortunately existing.” The amendment was supported by Messrs. Western, Protheroe, Davenport, Maberly, Duncombe, and R. Palmer, who all joined in condemning the extenuating phraseology used by government, as either being the result of gross ignorance regarding the true state of the country, or betokening a reprehensible determination to propose no measure of relief, and to institute no inquiry. The house, it was said, had long been in the habit of hearing complaints from individual classes in the country; but these complaints were no longer reiterated from the old quarters. The productive and industrious classes of the community were in a state of great misery; their distress was settling-down into universal discontent, and the voice of their disaffection would soon be heard, he said, with alarm. It was urged, also, that the pressure was severe on the classes immediately above the industrial portion of the community; and that those who dealt in manufactured goods were in no better situation than the agriculturists. It was stated in proof of this, that among the great body of the traders in the city of London, their stocks had suffered a depreciation of forty per cent. Sufferings so general, it was argued, affecting every interest of importance throughout the country, could not be the result of local causes. The amendment, it was said, corrected a most erroneous representation of a matter of fact, and it pledged parliament to nothing more than a cautious inquiry into the origin of the state of things which in fact existed. On the other hand the chancellor of the exchequer maintained, that no amendment had ever been moved so little at variance with the speech to which it was intended to apply; and that, although there was distress among both agriculturists and manufacturers in some parts of the kingdom, other parts were in a comparatively flourishing and prosperous state. Mr. Goulburn contended that there was great agricultural prosperity enjoyed in Ireland. This called up Mr. O’Connell, who denied that such was the case. He had, he said, travelled through the provinces of Leinster, Connaught, and Munster, where he not only had not seen proofs of prosperity, but had observed much distress. Mr. Huskisson supported the amendment, thereby giving the signal for his friends to divide against the ministry. It was of the greatest importance, he said, in the present season of universal disquietude and dissatisfaction, not to provoke a hostile discussion between the representatives of the people and the people themselves, and not to call down reproach on the house of commons by understating the distress and difficulty of the time. He believed that the country, in so far as the productive classes were concerned, was suffering greatly; and that if parliament looked at the subject properly, and acted with the caution which one part of the speech recommended, they would find themselves fully competent to cope with the existing difficulties. To some of the causes which had led to the distress parliament could apply no remedy; but it was in their power to satisfy the country as to what those causes were, and to afford a partial relief by giving a better direction to the capital of the country. Mr. Peel expressed surprise that Mr. Huskisson should support an amendment like the present, considering his long-expressed opinions. Session after session Mr. Huskisson had resisted commissions of inquiry, lest he should excite false expectations; and he now supported an amendment founded on principles and intended to lead to conclusions from which he totally dissented, because he thought it stated a matter of fact somewhat more correctly than did the speech itself. Mr. Peel then contended that the speech did not misstate facts; but proved the non-existence of universal distress by the increase of the internal and foreign trade of the country. Several members expressed their intention to vote for the address, although they believed the distress to be more general than the speech represented. As for the Whigs, they were divided between their wish not to leave the ministry, which showed a leaning towards them, exposed to defeat, and the fear of endangering their popularity by appearing to be indifferent to public suffering. Lord Althorp, for instance, was sorry to give a vote which might give him the appearance of joining the opponents of government; but found it to be his duty to vote for the amendment, because he believed the distress to be universal. Mr. Brougham, also said his vote for the amendment was wrung from him, because he thought it more correctly represented the state of things; but if he could bring himself to think that the effect of the amendment would be to displace the present government, he would vote for the address. Mr. Spring Rice expressed himself to the same effect. But these declarations of the leading members of opposition did not prevent their adherents from carrying their votes to the ministry; and the amendment was negatived by a majority of one hundred and fifty-eight against one hundred and five.
On the following day, when the report on the address was brought up, the Marquis of Blandford moved that the following extraordinary amendment, which he termed, “a wholesale admonition to the throne,” should be appended to the address:—“That this house feels itself called upon, in the awful and alarming state of universal distress into which the landed, commercial, and all the great productive interests of the country are at this moment plunged, to take care that your majesty shall not be the only person in your dominions ignorant of such an astounding fact, as well as of the consequent impending danger to the throne and other great national institutions, established by the wisdom of our ancestors for the protection and benefit of the people over whom your majesty has been called to preside,”—“That this house is at no loss to indicate the real cause of this most unnatural state of things; and, in justice to your majesty and the whole nation, it can no longer hesitate to proclaim that cause to the world.
“It is a fact, already too notorious, that this house, which was intended by our ancient and admirable constitution to be the guardian of the nation’s purse, has, from causes now unnecessary to be detailed, been nominated for the greater part by a few proprietors of close and decayed boroughs, and by a few other individuals who, by the mere power of money employed in means absolutely and positively forbidden by the laws, have obtained a ‘domination,’ also expressly forbidden by act of parliament, over certain other cities and boroughs in the United Kingdom.
“That, in consequence of this departure from the wisdom of our ancestors, the nation has been deprived of its natural guardian, and has in consequence become so burdened in the expensive establishments of all kinds, that, in a period much shorter than the life of man, the taxation, has risen from £9,000,000 to nearly £60,000,000 a year, and the poor-rates, or parochial assessments, during the same period, have augmented from £1,500,000 to £8,000,000 annually.
“That to render such a mass of taxation, so disproportionate to the whole wealth of the kingdom, in any degree supportable, recourse has been had, either from ignorance or design, to the most monstrous schemes in tampering with the currency, or circulating money of the country, at one time by greatly diminishing the value of the same, and at another time by greatly augmenting such value; and at each and every of such changes, which have been but too often repeated, one class of the community after another has been plunged into poverty, misery, and ruin; while the sufferers, without any fault or folly of their own, have been hardly able to perceive from what hand these calamities have come upon them.
“That under such circumstances, and with this knowledge before its eyes, this house would consider itself lost to every sense of duty towards your majesty, and guilty of treason towards the people, if it did not seize this opportunity of declaring to your majesty its solemn conviction that the state is at this moment in the most imminent danger, and that no effectual measures of salvation will, or can, be adopted until the people shall be restored to their rightful share in the legislation of the country; that is, to their undoubted right, according to the true meaning of the constitution, of choosing members of this house.” This amendment, was seconded by Mr. O’Connell, and Messrs. Western, Protheroe. Messrs. Smith and Davenport, declared themselves favourable to its spirit, although they thought it was injudicious to bring forward a topic of such importance as a mere amendment on an address. Sir Francis Burdett took the same course; and in his speech on this occasion he gave the ministry fair warning that they must either enter into a closer connexion with the Whigs, or no longer count on their support. Sir Francis said, that when he found the prime minister of England insensible to sufferings and distress, painfully apparent throughout the land; when, instead of meeting the calamity with measures of relief, he sought to stifle every important inquiry; when he called that a partial and temporary evil which was both long-lived and universal, he could not look on such a mournful crisis, in which public misfortune was insulted by ministerial apathy, without hailing any prospect of change in the system that produced such a state of feeling. What, he asked, could be said of the ignorance which could attribute the distress to the introduction of machinery, and the application of steam, that noble improvement in the inventions of man, to which men of science and intelligence mainly ascribe our prosperity? He felt a high respect for the abilities of the Duke of Wellington in the field; but he thought that the noble duke did himself equal justice when he said, previous to his taking office, that he should be a fit inmate for a lunatic asylum if he were ever induced to take such a burden on his shoulders. In fact, both he and many honourable members about him had long treated the illustrious individual with such tenderness, because they felt that he had conferred the greatest benefit on his country. He was the only man in England who could have accomplished what he had done; and his praise should be in proportion. It should, however, be at the same time remembered, that if his service was great, his recompense had been commensurate: they had repaid him in returns of confidence and approbation; but the time was come when it would be necessary to do much more. On a division the Marquis of Blandford’s motion was lost by a majority of ninety-six against eleven.