REDUCTION OF IMPOSTS, ETC.
Warned by their recent defeats, ministers, on the completion of their financial arrangements of this year made several reductions in the imposts. They had resisted the abolition of the salt-tax, but they now announced an intention of lowering it from fifteen to two shillings a bushel. They also remitted the annual duty on malt, the additional tax on leather, and that on windows and hearths in Ireland. By these means a reduction of taxation was effected to the amount or £3,500,000. These important measures were followed by several bills having for their objects the relaxation of the navigation laws, and the promotion of the system of free trade. Ship-owners raised a loud outcry against these enlightened enactments; but time has shown that they were equally beneficial to themselves as to the community at large. It was said that the repeal of the ancient navigation laws would enable other states to outstrip our own and prepare our ruin; but so far from increasing foreign competition, and diminishing British production, it has been the means of decreasing foreign importation, and of increasing our domestic manufactures.
MOTION FOR PARLIAMENTARY REFORM
Early in this session Lord John Russell called the attention of the commons to the subject of parliamentary reform. The scheme he proposed was to add one hundred members to the house, to be returned by the counties and larger towns, and to divest the minor boroughs of half the privileges they enjoyed. This was a moderate proposal, and yet it met with the most strenuous opposition, and especially from Mr. Canning. He conjured the house to oppose the introduction of any visionary schemes; and asserted, that a search after abstract perfection in government was not an object of reasonable pursuit, because it would prove vain. He added:—“I conjure the noble lord to pause before he again presses his plan on the country. If, however, he shall persevere, and if his perseverance shall be successful, and if the results of that success be such as I cannot help apprehending—his be the triumph to have precipitated those results, mine be the consolation, that to the utmost, and the latest of my power I have opposed thorn.” The motion was negatived; and the proposal of a general resolution by Mr. Brougham on the influence of the crown, which was introduced with the same ultimate views of reform, shared the same fate.
CAUSE OF THE GREEKS—PROROGATION OF PARLIAMENT.
The contest which was raging between the Greeks and their oppressors this year came under the notice of parliament. The Mussulmen had everywhere committed the most atrocious cruelties, and the sensations of horror which they produced in England caused Mr. Smith to put a question in the commons, regarding connivance, or at least neglect of remonstrance on the part of our diplomatic agents. Lord Londonderry answered in a flippant manner, that a calamity had occurred in which ten or twelve hostages had been executed, but which was justified by the barbarity of the Greeks. Sir James Mackintosh now took up the question in a strong remonstrance. He asked whether it was mentioned in any of the despatches that the markets of Smyrna and Constantinople were filled with Greek ladies and children? whether ministers could afford the nation any account of the new slave-trade recently established in the East for Christian families? and whether any of those persons who had been murdered at Constantinople had been under the protection of the British minister, or had surrendered themselves to the Turks under any pledge, promise, or assurance of safety from our ambassador? Lord Londonderry now confessed that eighty or ninety individuals had been executed; but he denied that they could be considered at all under the protection of the British government, or in such a situation as to require our interference.
Many questions of minor importance were discussed this session, but none that requires our consideration except the foregoing. Parliament was prorogued on the 6th of August: and then, on the 10th, the king paid a visit to Scotland; to drink “health to its chieftains and clans, and to bless the land of cakes.”