sessed taxes. He argued at some length against the utility of the sinking fund. He did not consider it necessary to answer at any great length the statements which had been put forth with respect to the pretended benefits which resulted from a sinking fund. It would take a more able calculator than he was to discover where the sinking fund had existed since the year 1792. He challenged any member of that House to prove that a sinking fund had been in existence from the year 1792 down to 1819. If the funds should continue to advance, it would be absurd to suppose that any reduction of debt could be effected with a sinking fund of five millions. Such a sinking fund would be of no more importance than a drop of water in the ocean. When the right honourable gentleman had stated that he wanted 900,000l. for churches, palaces, and pictures, there was a strong feeling in the House that the wants of the country had been trifled with. He would now state to the House the taxes which he proposed to repeal. They were the house and window duties, the horse and agricultural horse tax, the tax on carriages and carts, the tax on coachmakers' licences, the tax on hair-powder and armorial-bearings, the composition for the above, &c., amounting altogether to 3,560,000l. a-year. If the House should think proper to vote for the repeal of those taxes, he could see no reason why the whole expense of collecting them, amounting to 300,000l., should not also be got rid of. If the taxes should be repealed, there could be no pretence for retaining any part of the expense of collecting them, except, indeed, for the purpose of affording retired allowances to those who had been engaged in that service. He considered it a gloomy prospect, that, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer's plan were adhered to, the

country could have no prospect of a farther reduction of taxes till the ye 1829.

The Chancellor of the Exchequ conceived he had very little to add what he had formerly replied to M Hobhouse. The measure now prop sed being an extension of the form one, the same objections would app to it, in a stronger degree. He w unwilling to deal in prospects, eith gloomy or brilliant, as to future year: but, when 3,200,000l. had been r mitted last year, and 1,250,000l. i the present, he thought ministers ha sufficiently proved their disposition t do every thing possible for the reli of the nation. Although Mr Maberly motion, therefore, was seconded by M Hume and Lord Milton, it was nega tived by a majority of 171 to 78.

These preliminary points havin thus been adjusted, the minister, o the 8th May, presented the followin budget, or general summary:

The supplies already voted by the
House amounted to £18,284,714
Of which there had
been appropriated,
For the Army
The Navy

7,438,576 5,762,898

1,410,044

2,623,201

The Ordnance Miscellaneous services Exchequer bills

1,050,000

The only farther measure he had to submit, was an operation on the great sum of Exchequer bills now in circulation. This amounted to a little more than 34,000,000l., bearing an interest of 2d. per cent per day. He proposed to transfer four millions of these to the regular funded debt, and to reduce the interest on the rest d. per day. This would produce an annual

saving of between two and three hundred thousand pounds.

We may finally notice, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, almost spontaneously, came forward, and expressed his intention to remit the taxes on law-proceedings, a measure clearly just and expedient, and which gave general satisfaction.

THIS was a busy session, in regard to commerce. Those great principles of liberty, which had been avowedly adopt ed by the present ministry, but had hitherto been brought into action only by timid and incipient steps, were now brought forward on a great scale, and with intimations of their future more complete and unqualified adoption. As the leading members of the Whig, and even of the popular side, had either formed for themselves, or imbibed from Mr Ricardo, similar views as to this branch of policy, the measures of gopowerfully seconded, and their success could scarcely admit of doubt. At the same time, as the machinery of the new arrangements rolled on, a large mass of resistance, from various quarters, was insensibly collected. There were many, both old Whigs and old Tories, who stuck to the old English mercantile policy, and

vernment were

had

many plausible common-places to urge in its defence. It was under this

VOL. XVII. PART I.

system that England had prospered for centuries; we had had experience of it, and we had none of those new-fangled notions which were now the rage. It was represented as a kind of madness to pay our money for the foreign fabrics which our own manufacturers, if they had only a little of what is called protection, could easily supply. These arguments and prejudices were seconded by the extensive private interests, which every such change unfavourably affected. Petition after petition was poured in, representing, in the most exaggerated and doleful terms, the evils to which British interests would be exposed from this foreign competition. Meantime, the benefits derived from the introduction of cheaper and better commodities, being diffused over the whole mass of the nation, were not the business or the benefit of any particular person. The public did not come forward in their own behalf; they had a tendency to think, that people

D

All these conflicting sentiments and principles were brought into play by the proposed change on the silk duties, one of the oldest and most decided theatres of commercial warfare between the rival nations of England and France. To exclude the silks of France, as the article in which alone we were obliged to confess a humbling inferiority, had been a favourite stroke of the old commercial policy. Under the prohibitory system thus prompted, there had grown up an extensive and extending manufacture. Silks were becoming a British staple, and had even begun to be exported. There were, therefore, large interests liable to be affected by its free import from a rival country, so long celebrated as the main seat of this manufacture.

Under these circumstances, it is not to be wondered, that when the plan of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was announced, it should excite a pretty strong sensation among all concerned with the trade in silk. On the 6th March, Mr Baring, in presenting a petition from Taunton, brought the subject before the notice of the house. He declared himself, though an advocate for free trade in general, an enemy to this measure. He suspected that the skill of the French in dying, produced by the application of chemistry to that art, and the cheapness of labour, would enable them decidedly to undersell our manufactu

rers.

He laid down the broad principle, that no partial alterations of this nature should be made till the legislature should begin with the corn

laws, which raised the price of brea and the wages of labour. Mr Ba ring, in the course of the debat greatly abated his professions of at tachment to free trade, by stating, the he wished it only so far as that th country might become the entrepot the world, but not to open a free er trance to the manufactures of the co tinent. Mr Denman urged, in pr ference, the repeal of taxes whic would be sensibly and generally felt and Mr Ellice, joining with Mr B ring in thinking, that the beginnin ought to be made with the corn-law conceived also, that the first alteratio of the system should be in some bran of our industry not so liable to t competition of foreigners. Mr Ca ning and Mr Peel observed, that to d lay till the corn-laws were repeale was to put off to a period quite ind finite the removal of the restriction on trade. Mr Hume, in the most d cided manner, here joined ministe against the Whigs. By the eviden given before the committee, this fa seemed to be established, that if t raw material of silk could be obtai ed upon as easy terms as raw cotto there was no reason why we shou not excel other nations in the man facture of silk as we did in cotto What would be the effect of this wi measure? Why, to take 25 per ce off the price of the raw article, and throw much more extensive emplo ment into the hands of the manufa turer; for it could not be doubted th the immediate effect of this reducti would be an increased consumption and that, therefore, every man n petitioning against it from a mistak view of the case, would be immediat ly benefited by having full emplo ment; and Mr Hume would ventu to predict, that every silk-weave wages would be increased 25 per ce beyond what they had been for the la six months.