52

DEBATES ON THE ADDRESS.

[1816.

In a debate in the Committee of Supply, lord Castlereagh used a memorable expression which roused a spirit in the country of deep hostility—almost of disgust: "He felt assured that the people of England would not, from an ignorant impatience to be relieved from the pressure of taxation, put everything to hazard, when everything might be accomplished by continued constancy and firmness."* From the moment of this offensive declaration the Income Tax was doomed. The people had not borne the taxation of so many years of war with a heroism such as no people had ever before shown, to be taunted with ignorant impatience of taxation, now that they had won peace. The presumption of the government at this period was calculated to produce a violent reaction throughout the land. Men really thought that the old English spirit of freedom was about to be trampled upon when the debates on the Treaties took place, in which lord Liverpool moved the Address. Lord Grenville proposed an amendment, which deprecated in the strongest language "the settled system to raise the country into a military power." In the House of Peers the government had a majority of sixtyfour. Lord Holland entered a protest against the Address, in terms which embodied his speech upon the Treaties; and expressed the opinions of that section of the Opposition: "Because the treaties and engagements contain a direct guarantee of the present government of France against the people of that country; and, in my judgment, imply a general and perpetual guarantee of all European governments against the governed." In the House of Commons the Foreign Secretary moved the Address upon the Treaties. amendment was proposed by lord Milton, which deprecated the military occupation of France and the unexampled military establishments of this country. The debate lasted two nights, the Address being finally carried by a majority of a hundred and sixty-three. What was said on both sides was, to a considerable extent, the regular display of party conflict. The exultation of the government at the settlement of their war-labours look now scarcely more inflated than the fears of some members of the Opposition that the confederated arms of the despots of Europe might be turned against the liberties of England. The practical business that was at hand-the enforcement of economy, the alleviation of distress-was the matter of real importance that was to grow out of these debates.

An

The Corporation of London took the lead in the national expression of opinion against the Property Tax. It was not only the anti-ministerial party of the City that joined in the petition of the corporation;-the judgments of mercantile men against the continuance of the tax were almost universal. The dislike of the rural population was as fixed as that of the inhabitants of towns. The battle against this tax was one of the most remarkable examples of parliamentary strategy that was ever displayed. For six weeks the Opposition, headed by Mr. Brougham, availed themselves of all the means of delay afforded by the forms of the House. As petitions against the tax were presented night after night, debates on the petitions prevented debate and division on the reading of the Bill. It was the 17th of March before the resolutions for the continuance of the tax were presented to the House. The division of the 18th of March, upon the motion of the Chancellor of

Hansard, vol. xxxiii. p. 455.

1816.]

PROPOSED RENEWAL OF PROPERTY-TAX.

53

the Exchequer in a Committee of Ways and Means, was terminated in half an hour by the impatience of the House. For the continuance of the Property Tax 201 members voted; against it, 238. This defeat of the government dispelled the belief that resistance to taxation was "ignorant impatience." The Chancellor of the Exchequer took a somewhat remarkable course after this defeat. He voluntarily abandoned the war-duties upon malt, amounting to about 2,700,000l. The decision of the House would compel him to resort to the money-market,-in other words, to raise a loan. "It was of little consequence that the loan should be increased by the amount of the calculated produce of the malt-duty." Lord Castlereagh said, “it was a matter of indifference whether they took a loan of six or eight millions." This was the "indifference"-the result of a long course of unbounded expense-that required all the efforts of the people and of their friends, during many years, to change into responsibility.

The inquisitorial character of the Property Tax had some influence in producing the popular hostility to its continuance. The returns of the taxpayers were then scrutinized with a severity which has been wisely put aside in the present times. But during the pressure of war-expenditure, and long afterwards, the imposition and collection of other taxes were rendered as odious as possible to the people. The government employed, to an extent which scarcely seems credible now, an army of common informers, through whose agency the system of surcharges and penalties was enforced. (Southey attacked this disgrace of our nation as being ten times more inquisitorial than the Holy Office of Spain." This species of espionage has within these few years become a regular trade; the laws are in some instances so perplexing, and in others so vexatious, that matter for prosecution is never wanting." He describes how "a fellow surcharges half the people in the district; that is, he informs the tax-commissioners that such persons have given in a false account of their windows, dogs, horses, carriages, &c., an offence for which the tax is trebled, and half the surplus given to the informer." Harassed and perplexed-summoned from distant parts to appear before the commissioners-the persons informed against give up the trouble and expense of seeking justice; pay the penalty and bear the surcharge.*

The debates upon the Army Estimates, which eventually caused some reduction-the rejection of the Property Tax-the searching inquiry into the Civil List-the agitation of the question of sinecure offices-were indications. of the feeling which any government would have to encounter that did not resolutely determine that a season of peace should be a season of economy. When the details of the Civil List exhibited items of wanton and ridiculous luxury, the members of the Administration themselves were pained and humiliated. When the same ministers proposed the magnificent establishment for the Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold, upon their marriage, not a dissentient voice was heard in Parliament. The nation saw in this marriage of the presumptive heiress of the Crown-a marriage of affection— some assured hope that public duties might be fitly learned in the serenity of domestic happiness. The private virtues were felt to be the best preparation for the possession of sovereign power. The idea of a patriot queen dis

"Espriella's Letters"-Letter xvi.

54

MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE-THE REGENT. [1816. charging all her high functions with steady alacrity, confident in the affections of her people, of simple habits, of refined and intellectual tastes, her throne sanctified by the attributes of womanly affection-such hopes were something to console the nation for the present endurance of authority that claimed only "mouth-honour," without love or respect. The marriage of the Princess Charlotte was hailed as a public blessing. It took place at Carlton House, on the evening of the 2nd of May.

One of the most painful circumstances of this period, and one pregnant with danger, was the general contempt for the character of him who now wielded the sovereign authority. The military triumphs of the Regency made the nation only consider how strongly in contrast to the elevation of that heroic time were the cravings for ease and indulgence, the reckless expenditure upon childish gratifications, of the Regent. The attacks of the press upon his sensual follies made him hate the expression of public opinion. That voice was heard in a place where the character and actions of the sovereign are usually unnoticed, even in the greatest freedom of parliamentary debate. The Prince of Wales was in "all but name a King." Romilly describes a scene in the House of Commons, which took place in a debate on the 20th of March, in which Brougham, he says, made a violent attack upon the Regent, "whom he described as devoted, in the recesses of his palace, to the most vicious pleasures, and callous to the distresses and sufferings of others, in terms which would not have been too strong to describe the latter days of Tiberius." He adds, "it is generally believed that, but for the speech of Brougham's, the ministers would again have been in a minority.

Brougham's speech was very injudicious as well as very unjust, for, with all the Prince's faults, it is absurd to speak of him as if he were one of the most sensual and unfeeling tyrants that ever disgraced a throne." Nevertheless, although satire ran riot in ridicule of the unbounded and effeminate luxury of Carlton House in spite of ex officio informations, there was wanting some authoritative voice to proclaim that the mightiest of the earth are unworthy of their high station when they live for their own pleasures alone. The declamation of Mr. Brougham might be unstatesmanlike, but it was not without its use.

When the government, in the name of the Prince Regent, informed Parliament that "the manufactures, commerce, and revenue of the United Kingdom were in a flourishing condition," the exception of Agriculture was a sufficient announcement that the cry of "Distress " was near at hand. Amidst the best and the worst species of opposition-the power of argument and the weakness of tumult-a Bill was in 1815 hurried through Parliament which absolutely closed the ports till the price of wheat rose to 80s. This law was passed during a season of wonderful abundance. It produced the immediate good to the landed interest of preventing the abundant supply being increased by importation; but the effect which it produced to the nation was to dry up the resources in years of scarcity which the foresight of other countries might have provided. The war-and-famine price of 1812 was again reached in the latter part of 1816, in 1817, and in 1818. The golden days of the deity that is found in no mythology, the Anti-Ceres, were

*Romilly's "Life."

1816.]

COMPLAINTS OF AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS.

55

returned. But the people were starving. Misery and insurrection filled the land.

66

A year after the hasty enactment of a Corn-Law in 1815, amidst riots in the metropolis and the provinces, a majority of the landed interest came to Parliament to ask for the remission of peculiar burthens, and to demand fresh protection. The landed interest of 1816 had but one remedy for every evil-unequal remission of taxation conjoined with protection. They desired themselves to pay less to the State than their fellow-subjects; they'required the State to limit their fellow-subjects to that exclusive market for the necessaries of life which should dry up the sources of profitable industry, and thus make their taxation doubly burthensome. On the 7th of March Mr. Western laid upon the table of the House a series of fourteen Resolutions, which declared the "unexampled distress" of those whose capitals were employed in agriculture. They demanded the repeal of so much of the Act of 1815 as should allow foreign corn to be warehoused, so that only British corn should be stored; and urged an advance of money by the government to such individuals as might be inclined to buy up our native produce. The principle upon which all this was advocated was a sufficiently broad one : That excessive taxation renders it necessary to give protection to all articles the produce of our own soil, against similar articles the growth of foreign countries, not subject to the same burthens;" and "that it is therefore expedient to impose additional duties and restrictions on the importation of all articles, the produce of foreign agriculture." It is a remarkable example of the power of the landed interest in the House of Commons, that these assertions and unconditional demands were received not only with tolerance but respect. The day-spring of economical politics had scarcely yet dawned. The strength either of the Ministry or the Opposition essentially depended upon the numerical force of the country gentlemen. The commercial and manufacturing interests were most imperfectly represented. The landed aristocracy had retained official power, in association with a few "clerkly" workers, from the earliest feudal times. The admission of a merchant to the councils of the sovereign would have been deemed pollution. The mill-owners. had carried us through the war; yet as a political body they were without influence, almost without a voice. There was no one in the House of Commons, who had either the courage or the ability to probe the wounds of the agricultural interests, which were thus paraded before the nation. The Resolutions of Mr. Western in 1816 came to no practical result; for the chief reason, that the forced abandonment of the property-tax, and the voluntary relinquishment of the war malt-duty, had really left very little within the reach of Government to be offered as a further boon to the landed interest.

"Manufactures and Commerce," said the speech of the Prince Regent, "are in a flourishing condition." This was to rely upon the bare figures of Custom House returns. In 1815 the declared value of British and Irish produce and manufactures exported was fifty-one millions, being six millions more than in 1814. Well might the commerce of the country seem to be flourishing. Those who knew the real workings of that commerce were not so deceived. Mr. Baring, on the second night of the Session, declared, that " he saw more loss than gain in this great increase of export." When the

56

DEPRESSION OF COMMERCE AND MANUFACTURES.

[1816. destruction of the power of Napoleon in 1814 had opened the ports of the continent to our vessels; when the consumption of our exports no longer depended upon a vast system of contraband trade; it was universally thought that there could be no limit to the demand for British manufactures and colonial produce. If, under the anti-commercial decrees of our great enemy, the shipments to European ports had been twelve millions in 1811, why should they not be doubled in 1814? And accordingly they were doubled. The most extravagant profits were expected to be realized. The ordinary course of trade was forsaken, and small capitalists as well as large, at the outports as well as in London, eagerly bought up colonial produce, and looked for golden returns. "The shippers found to their cost, when it was too late, that the effective demand on the continent for colonial produce and British manufactures had been greatly over-rated; for whatever might be the desire of the foreign consumers to possess articles so long out of their reach, they were limited in their means of purchase, and accordingly, the bulk of the commodities exported brought very inadequate returns." A very slight consideration will explain the causes of this enormous mistake. In the first place, the continent was wholly exhausted by the long course of war; by the prodigious expenditure of capital that the war had demanded; by the wasteful consumption of mighty armies embattled against the oppressor; by the rapine of the predatory hordes that were let loose upon their soil; by confiscation. The people had necessarily the greatest difficulty to maintain life; they had little to spare for the secondary necessaries—nothing for indulgence. The merchants of our own country-the nation in general-had been so accustomed to the outward indications of prosperity at home during the course of the war, that they had no adequate idea that war was the great destroyer of capital, and that it essentially left all mankind poorer. In the second place, what had the continent to give us in exchange for our coffee and our sugar, our calicoes and our cutlery? The old mercantile school still existed amongst us, who thought that the perfection of commerce was to exchange goods for money, and that a great commercial nation might subsist without barter. But the continent had no money to exchange for English products, even if the exploded theories of the balance of trade could have found any realization. The continent, exhausted as it was, had its native commodities, but those we refused. We doggedly held on in a course of commercial regulation which belonged only to the infancy of society. We perpetuated foreign restrictions and exclusions of our own manufactured produce, by persistence in a system which other nations of necessity regarded as the cause of our manufacturing superiority. We did not then know how essentially this system retarded our own national progress. We listened to those who, on every side, clamoured for exclusive interests. Agriculturists and manufacturers, landowners and shipowners, equally shouted for protection.

The state of the American trade of 1816 was described by Mr. Brougham, after speaking of the disastrous results of the continental speculations:— "The peace with America has produced somewhat of a similar effect; though I am very far from placing the vast exports which it occasioned upon the same footing with those to the European markets the year before; because

*Tooke's "History of Prices," vol. ii. p. 8.