Page images
PDF
EPUB

9th of October, received from the learned
Baron and from Mr. Serjeant Gaselee a
report, in which they stated, that after a
careful consideration of the case, they were
satisfied that the verdict was an erroneous
one, and that the prisoner ought to be dis-
charged, and he was immediately dis-
charged accordingly. Some remarks had
been made with reference to the case of
Charles Butler, who was discharged after
undergoing a portion of his sentence. That
person was discharged solely on a medical
certificate stating that further confinement
would endanger his life. He was convicted
of what was supposed to be a criminal
offence, but which turned out to be a civil
one. With regard to affording compensa-
tion to persons under these circumstances,
it was quite true that three persons were
sent out to Van Diemen's Land under
sentence of transportation for a crime
which it was afterwards proved they did
not commit, and that they were brought
home free of expense, and had 10l. each
given to them. As to the general ques-
tion, he did not say that there were not
cases in which such a court of appeal might
exercise a useful jurisdiction. He could
assure his hon. Friend that he should be
very thankful to get rid of such a duty as
his office now devolved upon him.
Subject at an end.

Session of 1844; he afterwards became | produced, and some evidence as to the preSolicitor General, and from that time up vious character of the husband of the proto the summer of 1847 he did not attempt secutrix having been brought forward, he to revive the measure. With regard to (Sir G. Grey) then felt it his duty to send the case of Mary Ann Turford, who was the papers to one of the Barons of the convicted of stealing a watch, and sen- Court of Exchequer, who had some cogtenced to six months' imprisonment nisance of the case, and request his opinif there had been a criminal court of ap-ion. He (Sir G. Grey), at length, on the peal, the proceedings necessary to be taken before she could have obtained the benefit of that appeal, would have occupied nearly the whole period over which her term of imprisonment ran. But what was it that actually took place? The Recorder wrote to him (Sir G. Grey) stating that a man named Ward had been convicted of the very same offence, and that in his opinion Mary Ann Turford was innocent. On that very day an order for her discharge was issued. Now, it would have been impossible for so speedy a remedy to have been obtained from a criminal court of appeal. In the case of Thomas Whalley, who had been tried at the Stafford assizes, great negligence had been imputed to him. It was alleged that Whalley's was a clear case of innocence; and yet he had suffered eight months' imprisonment under an unjust sentence. What was the fact? He was convicted in March; and, for three months after, his case never came under his (Sir G. Grey's) notice. On the 11th of June a petition was addressed to him (Sir G. Grey), calling his attention to the case. It contained statements of a very important character, and numerous documents accompanied the petition. The usual course was taken in this case by the Home Office as in all others. He read the papers, and having received them on the 11th he returned them on the 16th to Mr. Serjeant Gaselee, who tried the prisoner. In taking this course he did that which had always been done by his predecessors in the same department; not relying simply on the statement on the part of the prisoner, the documents were first forwarded to the judge who presided at the trial, and who was therefore enabled to form a much more satisfactory opinion upon the case than any one else. A very considerable time elapsed before Mr. Serjeant Gaselee made his report. In August he was reminded of the circumstance, and in reply he stated that he had been requested by the prisoner's counsel to delay sending in his report, as further documents would be furnished. Until those documents were furnished, Mr. Serjeant Gaselee expressed SIR G. GREY said, in answer to the his entire concurrence in the verdict of the hon. Gentleman, he had to state that the jury. Other documents were, however, | Act placed a discretionary power in the

PAUPER LUNATIC ASYLUM. MR. DEERING asked of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, "whether it be his intention to enforce the discretionary power vested in him by the Act 7th and 8th of Victoria, c. 126, where an asylum for pauper lunatics shall not have been begun upon before August next in any county of England, the funds for defraying the expense of the same being forbidden by the same statute, as well as by the Act 9th and 10th of Victoria, c. 84, to be raised at a higher rate of interest than 5 per cent; or whether he means to reserve such exercise of his intervention until moved to do so through the medium of presentment by the local authorities?"

hands of the Secretary of State to take measures for compelling justices to do their duty; and that when the Act came into operation he trusted he should be found exercising that discretion in such a manner as would be beneficial to the public.

COMMERCIAL DISTRESS-ADJOURNED

DEBATE.

The Order of the Day for the Adjourned Debate upon Commercial Distress was then read, and the debate thereon resumed.

ral, but artificial. In like manner, I believe that the remedy is either most difficult or most easy-most difficult when attempted by the enacting of laws, and most easy when attempted by their repeal. In fact, the distress of the country is the work of this House, and the only remedy is the abrogation of the laws that we have made. But it would now appear that these measures are most popular-that it is most agreeable to the House to defend them-and that to quote the present comMR. URQUHART: Sir, the unfortu- mercial distress, except as proving the efnate occasion of the premature assemblage ficiency of the system in averting, not proof Parliament appears to me to have been ducing, panics and catastrophes, is unvery inadequately represented in the dis- seemly and improper. The question was, cussion which took place in this House on however, differently dealt with by the hon. Tuesday evening. We have been assem- Member for Huntingdon, who, though bled for the avowed purpose of granting a merely exposing the Chancellor of the ExBill of Indemnity to Ministers for infrac- chequer upon his commercial view of the tion of the law; and we find them intent case, declared, in a speech that redeemed and engaged only for its defence. The the debate, that the country had already Government proposed to us a Committee decided upon the Charter-that it had alof Inquiry; by the proposal public alarm ready sat in Committee upon the Bill, and is to be allayed, and this system is to be thrown it out; he further announced his upheld. Committees of Inquiry are pro- conviction of danger—not prospective, theposed with the view of getting rid of an oretic, or remote, but practical and inevitaobnoxious law. The Chancellor of the Ex- ble-so long as this system was maintainchequer maintains the system, and proposes ed; yet he himself had voted for this inquiry to modify a defect in the parlour very Bill. I have different grounds; and of the Bank. Upon this there is an Amend- I may in some degree relieve myself from ment, and the speech of the proposer is the reproach of presumption in daring to an argument that the currency laws have touch upon this subject, by stating that at nothing to do with the present distress. the time that this Charter was passed, I Now, it appears to me that the ques- entertained respecting it the same opinion tion before us is one of far greater gravity that I do now. When the right hon. Baas to its causes, its circumstances, and ronet introduced the Bill, he avowed it to its effects. We have here to deal with a be a measure which affected society to its system carried out in a series of legislative very foundation. No subject, he said, of measures which had their origin at the greater importance could be presented for Peace. That system has had its advocates the consideration of Parliament. How was and its enemies. Each, while expounding the country to be affected? It was to be their reasons for opposing or supporting it, affected for good or for evil. He did not have prophesied the consequences that it say that it would be for good; and in the would bring. We are now arrived at a nature of things it could not be so. Prosperiod when there remains no further ne- perity can be created by no laws, no more cessity of investigating into the causes; than health can be introduced by medicine. for we have before us results so often re- The only effect that could be produced by peated, that by them alone we can judge laws upon commerce was therefore necesof the value of the one or of the other. sarily bad, as the results have shown. The These results have totally falsified the declaration of the introducer of the meahopes and prognostications of its support- sure was bold, if ambiguous, and fairly ers, and have confirmed the fears and pre- challenged the Parliament and the country dictions of those who are opposed to it. to investigate before they adopted a system Sir, it appears to me that the currency of which each individual might be the vicsystem is at once the most difficult and the tim. It required a case of clear advanmost easy of questions; the most difficult tage and of imperative necessity before when approached in one way-the most such a measure could be adopted; and easy when approached in another; and the no such were shown by him, or sought reason of the difference is this, that the by them. This system not only condifficulties that surround us are not natu-vulses our material condition; it abro

gates the laws of our constitution; it treats with defiance the dictates of wisdom and philosophy, and leaves us in the midst of chaos. The power of this House consists in voting the supplies-what signifies our control over supplies when property can be cast down or raised up, and money transferred from one hand to another? What signifies our right to impose customs and other duties when the rate of interest can be swept up or down by an instrument over which we have no control, called the screw of the Bank? It has been admitted by the highest authorities that the emancipation of industry and the creation of the middle classes of society have in a great measure depended upon the progressive depreciation of coin through the influx of the precious metals from the mines of America. The tide has now turned-the precious metals are becoming more scarce, and therefore more dear; and this is the moment that we seize not to counteract this tendency, but to aggravate and increase it. The reduction of the rate of interest has been recognised by the most practical men, as well as by theorists, as the test and means of an improved condition of trade and of society. In proportion as that interest has been reduced, has value been given to all things except mere capital in money; in exact proportion to its reduction has risen the value of land, and the facilities of manufacture; and now in this so-called period of progress and civilisation we suddenly carry back the rate of interest to what it was two centuries ago. Again, in all admirably constituted Governments-in those great systems that have flourished for many ages-one undeviating rule has been to impose taxes so that they should fall upon large accumulations of property, to prevent those large additions to the power which wealth gives for its own further increase. We, reversing these maxims, and subverting our own constitution, not only spare wealth in taxation, but convert the public burdens into inexhaustible mines for the avarice of a few. And, in addition, you have an increased necessity of taxation, further to augment each of those causes out of which it has sprung. In regard to the most essential purposes of Government, there is a balance between the privilege of this House and the prerogative of the Crown. To the one is confided the control of the expenditure, to the other the making of peace and war; and the system which destroys the one, extinguishes the

other. In what condition is one country in respect to others, which is at every moment upon the verge of internal bankruptcy and confusion, and the means of producing which in its own breast is, as I hope to be able to show before I sit down, placed by this system at the disposal of a foreign Power? Thus is it, as it was truly said by the proposer of this measure; and I refer not only to the Act of 1844, but to that of 1819-that it is one which deeply affects every member of the community, the Queen Victoria upon the Throne, to the humblest individual in his meanest occupations, and affects them for evil and not for good. I feel that I am, perhaps, unduly trespassing upon the indulgence of the House; but I am satisfied that this question cannot be approached except by an effort to place the system as such in contrast with other systems and with other times; and that therefore these preliminary matters are not less requisite than the minutest details. On Tuesday night we heard of every thing but the Bank Charter-circumstances, potatoes, human nature, all came in for their share. There was every reason but the reason

the Bill which had been introduced to render that which has happened impossible. The first cause assigned for this distress was the railways-by converting floating into fixed capital. What is a railway if not an association to spend money and employ labour? Where does the money go, but for sugar and for tea, for meat, for bread, and for beer? Is it not laid out in wood, in iron, as soon or nearly as soon as it is received; and the difference only is, that in the meantime you have created a fixed and real capital. There may be cases of injurious speculation and false investments; but still how could these be an absorption of capital or of money? And if there really were 160,000,000l. so spent, as was stated to us on the first evening of the Session, no more could it be brought in to account for the monetary crisis than if you were to assign as such cause the sums total of the butchers' and bakers' bills throughout the country. Besides, if railways had caused the distress, what would the argument avail? Who were those who most sedulously promoted railways? The next pretext is the drain for corn. What! a nation with 5,000,000,000l. of capital, and 500,000,000l. of yearly returns, convulsed and impoverished because 10,000,000l.have been paid out for value received? B

[graphic]

cause 10,000,000l., or say 20,000,0001. go | system that had carried you through the abroad, is property to the amount of some war; supposing that you had not thought hundreds of millions to be sacrificed at fit to confide yourselves to the hands of a home, and your whole fortune to be deteri-Currency Committee-if you had not trusted orated 25 per cent? When, Sir, so pre- yourselves to the guidance of the right posterous a reason as this is urged, I do hon. Baronet-then would you have paid in say it is a still greater public calamity than the present emergency no more than you even the disasters which are thus accounted paid during the war, that is, one-third less. for. We who in our last war with half But what would have been the effect of our present population, and with half our paying less by one-third? Why, it is means of production, supported a yearly that you would have paid none at all. Had drain of above 100,000,000l., are now the gold which you exported been purin the midst of peace to be ruined by chased here at 57. instead of 31. 17s. 101⁄2d., 20,000,000l. of produce purchased from you would not have given to the foreign abroad. We have an abundant harvest, merchant a bonus upon gold, and you we are in the midst of peace: what natural would not have placed for the British cause could have produced a panic that has manufacturer an embargo upon his goods. only stopped short of bankruptcy? But if This is the cause of that drain of gold the proposition is absurd as an argument, the argument is dangerous to those by whom it is used. By whom is this argument used? By those very men who have hitherto told us that the relaxation of our duties upon grain would lead to a large export of our manufactures. Was not this that upon which they built their hopes? Was not this that which those who opposed them apprehended? I recollect the right hon. Baronet the Secretary for the Home Department, in the year 1838, anticipating the changes to be effected in the condition of the people of England, by the opening of our ports to foreign grain, pathetically describing the dismal tinkle of the factory bell superseding

"The breezy call of incense-breathing morn." Rural life was to be utterly driven forth from the vales of once merry England by this enormous drain of traffic, and as land after land was open for the supply of grain, so would market after market be opened for the export of our goods. How is it then that this demand for foreign grain has not carried away British manufactures instead of Mexican gold? How is it, that instead of the occasion which was hoped for by the friend, or feared by the foe of free trade, we have results that justify neither? It is because you have a fixed price for gold. How was it that in war time, with the price of grain as high as the point it has attained to in the course of this year, namely, 120s., we could manage to endure and even to prosper? For this reason, that you had then no fixed price of gold, and consequently you paid your 120s. with one-third less gold than you do now. Supposing that on the restoration of peace, you had not thought fit to break down the

that drain of four or five millionswhich by its reaction in some circuitous and incomprehensible manner has depreciated your whole fortune to one quarter of its amount. Another argument in support of the Amendment, which as far as I can see has no ways amended the original Motion, was the strange proposition, "that in this country the price of gold was not fixed." When I heard those words I thought that I must have been mistaken; but they were repeated and enforced. But great as was my astonishment at hearing such a proposition, how much greater was it to observe that it was cheered by the right hon. Baronet near me, and the noble Lord opposite (Lord J. Russell). I know not how I am to deal with such a proposition. The price of gold in this country not fixed! What was the Bill of 1819? What is your standard of value? Why, an Act of Parliament upon the subject! How was it that the money sent out during the war to pay for foreign grain should have been paid for at 51., and that to-day the same gold goes forth at 31. 17s. 10d.? The statement is not true. It is ludicrously false. But how can such a misstatement be made in the presence of this assembly, and at such a moment? How is it announced with the emphasis of a discovery, and assented to as an undoubted or an unquestionable truth? How is it cheered from the Treasury bench, and the Opposition one? The reason is that it was a sophism, with which not indeed to answer, but perhaps to puzzle those who might be surprised that free traders in grain were not free traders in gold. ["Hear, hear!"] I thank the hon. Gentleman for the observation, and the right hon. Baronet for the cheer. He objects, then, to a fixed

[graphic][subsumed]
« EelmineJätka »